4 AM Miracle
by Lady Gallagher
Summary: Rachel/Puck. AU. He's not even pretending he doesn't need her anymore.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N.: I've been listening to a really inspiring song over and over and it's been making my head just a little fuzzy. So this is what came out of it. It's a tiny little piece of a much bigger thing I've got written here. It's AU, Rachel/Puck centered, but there are other characters involved, all about 25~26 years, none of them from Glee. It's all explained in the story, so if (IF!) I turn this into a multi-chaptered thing, this will be your background. Obviously there's a lot more written here that makes this AU a lot easier to understand, but for now that's all I'm willing to share. Let me know what you think.**

He's watching her on stage, talking to her co-star, John. She's wearing this cute green dress and her hair is in a neat ponytail, going from side to side as she walks on this pole that is a part of the scenery with her arms balancing her. She laughs about something John just told her. Then she glances at Puck from the stage and he quickly looks back at the empty page on the laptop in front of him.

Oh, yeah. He's a writer. He's been doing it for quite some time now. He's got a degree in Cinema from UCLA while Rachel's got a M.F.A in Acting from Julliard. They're involved in a musical. He wrote the script and she's his female lead while her friend, John, is his male lead.

_Their. _Their leads. Puck's and his best friend's, Julian, who's a musician and is producing the musical with him, having composed all the songs the cast sings on stage. They've had their premiere two weeks ago, having had rehearsed for about three months before that and he still catches himself watching her intently.

He really needs to stop doing that. It's just that she makes it so easy for him to want her, like, all the time. And then she acts like it's not her intention, which makes him want to shoot himself. She'd said they can't be together because he's her boss. She'd said it might get in the way of his stage direction, jeopardizing the musical and all its elements, because the whole crew and cast are supposed to be in sync and if their dynamic as a couple gets in the middle of that, the quality of their performance might be... He doesn't remember the word she used there. He's surprised he remembers so much, actually. She was wearing a killer dress with an ungodly cleavage when she approached him in the wrap party and told him all that.

He's still staring at the blank page on his laptop when Julian arrives in the theater. "Morning."

Puck doesn't say anything.

"Still stuck?" Julian asks him, glancing at the screen. He sits next to him and puts his guitar on the table where Puck's laptop is. Puck's been working on this script for_ Touchstone_ and the deadline is approaching.

"I don't know how I even do this." Puck says, rubbing his eyes. "It's some sort of magical thing that happens to me when I'm not looking because it seems impossible that I wrote the play we're about to rehearse here and right now my mind is… blank. Not even a single word or a sentence that makes any kind of sense."

Julian smiles as he takes some musical sheets from his bag. "I'm sure you'll get past this like you always do." He gets up from the table and walks to the stage. He watches his best friend, hoping that his words will come true.

They were looking for funding for their play about six months ago. Julian had all the songs composed and Puck had the bigger part of the script written. They were turned down over and over again and they both knew that the chance of getting someone to trust their project when it wasn't even totally written yet was slim to none.

Until their senior producer, Kate Mitchell, appeared on the picture.

Kate was a successful young producer who had a good name on the business and picked up their project God knows why. She arranged a meeting with Julian and Puck laughed at his friend on the phone when he called him after saying that they'd gotten it. Out of a bunch of scripts that Kate had received, she had found theirs promising. An unfinished, totally unpretentious story about young teenagers who struggle to find themselves in a fantasy totalitarian country in Eastern Europe had been picked by Kate Mitchell, an ascendant producer that managed to get them the money they needed to start pre-production phase.

Puck knew his responsibility would grow exponentially once they got the funding. They were able to start casting auditions and crew auditions now ("Let's try to pick some kick ass musicians for this", Julian had said), but the fact that the script wasn't totally written was killing him slowly. He had written almost all the characters, had cast some people (John among them), but he still thought it wasn't good enough. He didn't think his best friend and Kate, who had put an enormous amount of faith in him, deserved less than extraordinary . Weeks had passed, weeks that were eating him alive. He'd tried writing up on a hill, back at his house in Ohio, inside the theater, during a blowjob (which had provoked a crappy reaction from the red head on her knees) and absolutely nothing had worked. Julian was the guy who had dealt with him in those dark, unbearable days. He'd spent a lot of hours drinking outside his trailer, laptop on the table, unshaved face, and unrecognizable to anyone who'd known him.

Until the Oscars. John had mentioned something about his friend performing on it to Julian and Puck was in no mood to go at all, but somehow Julian had said that he had to leave the trailer eventually. He still couldn't wrap his mind around it, how it had happened. All he knew is that in one moment he was bored as hell, sitting in the back of the Kodak Theater in these crappy seats Kate had managed to get them, and in the next, this brunette appears out of nowhere singing "Don't Rain on My Parade". It was about four minutes of an almost religious experience. She was a vision or something, and it was fucked that as soon as the thing was over he was rushing to his car to spend a whole weekend writing her character.

_Her _character, he knew. They saw over a hundred girls after that, no joke, but he was as sure as he had been about few things on his life that she would be Bojana. He'd asked John if she was involved in anything projects in the moment and the guy had said she wasn't. He'd insisted that he convinced her to show up for one audition, no strings. And then she read and sang for them, Julian, Kate, him and the whole cast. At the end of that day, as they all met without her in a room, they knew they had the last member of the cast. Puck knew that all along, but whatever. The others needed some time to get there too.

So, yeah. He wasn't even pretending that he didn't need her anymore.

* * *

><p>"Are you going to embarrass me?" Rachel asks as they walk on this hotel hall.<p>

Puck glances at her, annoyed. "Look, it's my first time doing that but I've had other social experiences in my life, you know."

She raises a hand to her face, closing her eyes. "Our star is on the rise, Noah, please don't ruin it by doing something Puckish, okay?" She looks a bit apologetic and turns to him. "It's just that I'm used to do this with John and we practically know what the other is thinking."

He chokes back a laugh, knowing that it would annoy her even more. They reach the room where they're supposed to have the interview. The door is closed.

Rachel stops in front of the door, blocking him. "If you get uncomfortable or anything close to that, don't say anything. Let me jump in and try to help you, okay? You'd be surprised with the things we say when we're blushing."

He sighs, staring down at her. "Anything else, madam?"

She lowers her eyes to his chest. "I really like that shirt." She opens the door and gets in.

He smiles as he follows her. He's wearing a "Pulp Fiction" shirt. He had no idea she liked it that much.

Helen, their assistant, is standing inside the room and there's another door at the end of it. She nods at Rachel. "You guys ready?"

"Yes." Rachel replies.

"Okay, let's go." Helen walks towards the door and opens it, gesturing for them to go in. Puck doesn't understand why his heart is beating a little faster than it was just a few minutes ago.

They enter this small but cozy room. There's a camera between two chairs pointing at a comfortable couch. The reporter stands up and smiles, shaking both of their hands. "Thank you very much for being here."

"No problem, we're glad to be here." Rachel says, and it amazes Puck how natural she looks, smiling and sitting down. He does the same, lowering himself next to her and noticing how the dress she's wearing gapes around her thigh. He looks at his hands quickly, together across his lap.

"So, I think I want to start by asking about the casting auditions." the young reporter says, crossing his legs on the chair.

Puck glances at Rachel, who smiles at him. He doesn't understand how that unpretentious smile of hers makes him calmer somehow. "Well, huh, I was working on the project with Julian for about a year and he had seen John on Grease, where he was absolutely amazing. He was the first actor we hired for the musical and the others auditioned in a period that we like to call the Holocaust."

Rachel laughs at that. The reporter seems confused and she explains, "It's the period where writers and producers are desperately looking for funding to their plays and movies. It's…" she glances at Puck. "...wild." They both smile, looking at Helen, who smiles back.

The reporter raises his eyebrows. "Aren't you both Jewish?"

"In L.A., who isn't?" Rachel says and all the four of them laugh now.

"Okay." the reporter goes on, still laughing a little. "So you didn't even know if the play was going to be a real thing when you did the auditions?"

"Nope." Puck answers. "We just hoped. It wasn't a reality until Kate joined us. She picked our play and showed it to the chairman of ABC, who trusted her enough to give us a bunch of money when the script wasn't even complete."

The reporter moved excitedly on his chair. "Yeah, about that, that's unusual, right? What kind of lobby did Kate Mitchell have to do to convince Peter Rudolph to believe in your project? It's known in show business that he's not the kind of guy who goes blindly into things."

"We had very good musical material at that point." Rachel says. "Julian had already composed all the songs that we perform on the musical and they were very promising. Plus Kate had a lot of faith in the musical; she just tried to get Peter to see that, too."

"And what do you know, she was right." The reporter says, smiling and lowering his eyes to his notebook. "How about Rachel's casting?"

Puck runs his fingers on his nose. This is precisely what he thought would be categorized as 'an awkward moment of an interview'. He didn't want to get into specifics about her character and how he chose her. Maybe he'd tell her someday. Just not yet, and certainly not to an overenthusiastic young reporter. He stares at the guy in front of him, not sure about what to say. Rachel seems to sense that.

"It was a group work. I auditioned for him, all the cast, Kate, Julian and I'm sure the decision was made considering the opinion of all of them." She says, much to Puck's relief.

The reporter doesn't seem convinced. He looks at both of them for a second but then lowers his eyes again, letting it go for the moment.

"How about the nominations? Were you expecting it?"

"For Best Original Score, certainly. Julian is a musical genius and totally deserved it." Rachel says.

"What about the other nominations? You've been nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, Best Musical and Best Original Score."

Puck moves in his seat. "She and John totally deserved the nominations. We from the inside know how much they've worked to nail both characters, especially Rachel who had to struggle like hell to give life to Bojana. It was a fight, an everyday fight and I'm glad it turned out to be what it is today and I'm glad the Academy is seeing this."

"Okay, so." The reporter takes a deep breath. "I don't know if you're aware that you've become essentially the hit musical of the season and have been gathering followers and fans all around the world. Fact is, there's a lot if gossip about the cast and everybody involved in the musical. People talk about things that supposedly happen during rehearsals and parties and in your personal lives. I'm not asking things that will make you uncomfortable but if you could just let us in if some of them are funded, that'd be real nice."

Puck doesn't like the way that sounds. Rachel grimaces a little. "Such as?"

"Well, for one thing, it is true that Julian and Puck live in trailers up on a hill in L.A.?"

Rachel looks at Puck. "Huh, yes." He says.

"Interesting. Another rumor that has circulated around the web is that Rachel's house is sort of a – how can I put it – a dorm that a portion of the cast live in?"

"Yes, John, Lisa, Philip, Matt, Alex and Simon live there." She says.

"Okay. I have here a question from a fan, her name is Christine, she's from Nebraska, and she's asking if the rumors that Kate doesn't like Puck are true."

Puck's eyes widen. Rachel laughs at this. "No, they're not. Kate is a great boss and Puck's friend. I don't know where people take these things from."

"This one is from Roger, Maine; he's asking if the rumors about Rachel and John being together are true."

Rachel laughs harder at this one. "Oh my god. No, we're not together, he's my best friend in the whole world and openly gay."

"Are there any couples among the cast?" the reporter asks.

There's a moment of silence. Puck's surprised that he's the one who speaks. "Not so far."

The reporter closes the notebook and stands up. "Well, that's it for today, thank you again for doing this."

They all shake hands and the reporter leaves with Helen, and then they're both alone in the small room.

"How do they know Kate hates me?" Puck asks, confused.

"I don't know, but you deny it till death, Noah. You don't think before answering questions like this, you react, no, she doesn't hate me, no, the rumors aren't true, no, there are no couples, PERIOD. What the hell was the 'not so far' thing?"

"What did you want me to say?"

"Not that! You don't give the press things to work on; they've already set up a camp outside the theater!"

"Okay, I'm sorry, it was my first time interviewing, okay?"

She sighs. "You did well." He smiles at her. "I did better." She says, raising an eyebrow and getting up from the couch.

He laughs shaking his head. "Everything's a competition."

She rolls her neck and heads to the door, followed by him. "Alex's having this thing in a pub to celebrate his record deal, everybody's there. Want to come?"

"Sure, I could kill for drinks right now."

She walks backwards and smiles at him. "I'm going to change and then we can leave."

He doesn't think she knows she looks sexy as hell walking backwards with that dirty little smile. She reaches her dressing room doorknob.

"Hey, Rachel?"

She turns to him. He stares at her and forgets what he was going to say. "Nothing, just… Never mind."

She smiles at him again and gets in her room.

He stands there for a second looking at the space she'd just occupied. Is it possible to describe how you feel the moment you realize you're about to write something potentially amazing? He smiles, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pen. There's a little something in his mind right now that he was to put on ink so he won't forget.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N.: Okay, so here's chapter 2! You'll notice I constantly change the POV in my stories. It's nice for me to practice and it's nice for you to start to get ****to know the other characters in this fiction. **

**From now on I'll start to tell this story from the beginning, letting you know how they all met (except the ones who were friends before, like Rachel/John and Julian/Puck) and got involved in the musical. So all this happened before the musical's premiere. I really want to set this story right before the exciting things start to happen.**

**I would really appreciate if you could give me some feedback about the original characters. **

Kate raises her glass of wine and smiles forcefully. She feels like this whole night has been one endless journey. She can see Peter's mouth moving, though she can't hear what he's saying. It happens a lot during these dinners, parties and meetings that are happening a lot now. This particular dinner she's at right now is to celebrate her being hired as manager of the theater division of ABC. She forces herself to pay attention to whatever Peter's toasting.

"I hope you're ready to go through the Holocaust, dear." He says, smiling at her from across the table. "I know I just got you hired but I'm afraid you're going to have to start tomorrow by turning kiss-ass producers down."

The whole table laughs and so does she. She's glad Peter seems to notice how out of place she's feeling right here, with a bunch of executives from ABC. "To Kate Mitchell, the newest member of our network. Make us proud, honey."

She raises her glass to her mouth and drinks a sip of the wine inside it. Funny. It tastes like cranberry juice. She just hopes this evening is over soon.

* * *

><p>Julian parks his car and turns off the radio. He turns the engine off, looking around the two trailers. Everything seems oddly quiet. He gets out of the car and goes to Puck's. The table outside of it is full of beer cans.<p>

"Man, you in there?" he asks, opening the door. He looks inside the trailer and sees no one. Stepping out of it again, he looks around. "Puck!"

No answer. He gets his phone out of his pocket and dials his friend's number. It starts ringing from some place higher than the ground. Julian looks up, confused. Then he sees Puck sitting on a branch tree a little further in the land.

"What the hell?" he says, going under it. Puck's listening to his iPod and his eyes are closed. "PUCK!"

Puck opens his eyes and looks down, taking the pluggs off his ear.

"They saw our script! This guy from ABC just called me saying that!" Julian says, smiling big.

"I know. You told me on the phone." Puck answers.

"Yeah, well, we've been waiting for this forever! I'm actually going to meet the producer who may pick us right now!"

"Good."

"Good? Aren't you coming?"

Puck starts to get down from the tree. "No, I'm not. I need to write."

Julian waits until he gets down from the tree and stops right in front of him. "How long haven't you been down there?" he points at the city down the hill. "How long haven't you even left this land?"

Puck smiles in a way that lets Julian know that he doesn't want to talk about this. But he's not giving up. He needs to say things that will make his friend grimace and maybe hate him a little, but they need to be said.

"You're sinking." He tells Puck in a serious voice. "This script is making you sink. This is making you ill and lonely and it has to stop."

Puck laughs. It's a false, irritating laugh that he usually uses when he's desperate or really pissed. Julian thinks it applies to both situations right now.

"I can't stop. I can't stop writing, Julian. I started it, then you got in this much latter than me and managed to write all the songs. But somewhere along the way I got stuck in a huge, monstrous black hole that seems to love to take away all my artistic aspirations with it." Puck talks and walks a little not steadily to his trailer, grabbing a half full can of beer and drinking it. "My job is to find a way to beat this sucker and manage to move my fingers on that laptop in a way that the result doesn't make me want to throw up." He gets inside the trailer and slams the door behind him.

Julian sighs before going back to his car and leaving to meet the producer. He's worried about Puck, granted, but he has to focus on this meeting now. The guy who called him and said that their script had been chosen was Kate Mitchell's assistant, who he had never heard of. A quick search on the internet showed him that she was a successful producer that had brought two UCLA students' plays to a huge success.

He drives all the way to the ABC's building and goes up until he reaches the right floor. He finds a room with a sign that reads "Kate Mitchell, theater division". He enters the room and sees an older woman sitting on a desk.

"You're Julian Cortez, right?" she asks him.

"Yes, and I have a meeting with Kate Mitchell in ten minutes."

"Okay, she will be right in just a moment. Make yourself comfortable, please."

Julian nods and sits on the comfortable couch in the waiting room. He waits for what feels a long time before the phone on Kate's assistant table rings and she nods before telling him that she will be late for the meeting and asking if he would mind meeting her in another part of the building. He agrees and the woman explains him where the other place is before he leaves her office.

He gets to a little room that looks like a movie theater and sees a few people on the front of it, talking about what seems to be a play. In the audience he sees two people listening to them. The woman notices him and gets up abruptly from her chair, smiling brightly at him. "Julian!" she greets.

The people presenting seem a little confused that she's gotten up and has stopped paying attention to whatever they were saying. She turns to them and smiles, guiding Julian out of the room. "Carry on, Peter's the one who really makes the decisions!"

They leave the room together and as soon as they're out the door she closes it behind her and says "Oh my god, I haven't seen anything so terrible since Grease II!"

Julian smiles, a little confused. The woman is wearing heels and a blazer and her her hair is pulled up in a bun. She has really green eyes.

"I'm sorry I used you in there." She says, pointing at the room. "I'm -"

"Kate Mitchell, I know." He says and immediately feels dumb. She extends her hand and he shakes it.

"And you're the guy who composed the awesome songs on the script that ended up on my desk last night." She tells him, smiling. "I couldn't stop reading it."

"Yeah, it's unfinished, but it's really, really nice.

She nods. "What's missing from it?"

Julian swallows, a little taken aback by her bluntness. "You would have to ask the writer. I just wrote the songs."

"Why should I trust him?" she asks suddenly. "He sent me an unfinished script, which is pretty good, but isn't good enough." She says. "I loved the musical part and that's why I asked you to come here today, but maybe you'd like to consider using these songs in a different script from a different writer."

"What?" Julian jumps. "No! Puck's a great writer, he's just…" He doesn't think he's able to finish that sentence, not when his best friend is in the darkest place he's seen him in since his parents died when he was a little boy.

Kate stares at him. He sighs and tries to order his thoughts. "He's my best friend. I grew up with him and I've known him my whole life. I've seen what he's capable of. I know it's a lot to ask since you don't know him at all, but trust me, when it hits him, you'll have the script you've been waiting for."

Kate doesn't say anything for a second. They stare at each other for a moment before Kate breaks the eye contact.

"Funding is yours. I told Peter I had our D-day script. Tomorrow morning our PR will announce that ABC's musical has already been chosen." She walks to the door and grabs the knob. "You've just started to the turn the table here." She opens the door. "Tell your buddy to end this damn war already." She goes in, leaving Julian on the other side with a goofy, yet totally wicked smile on his face.

* * *

><p>John, Julian and Puck walk down the aisle of the Kodak Theater to find their seats. They're all in really fancy tuxedos, except Julian is wearing his Converse and Puck isn't wearing a tie. That got an indignant reaction from John, who is wearing a flawless Armani suit that had Rachel drooling all over it earlier.<p>

He had been invited to be a part of Puck and Julian's project after they'd come to see his show about two weeks ago. Julian had come to him and had asked him if he wanted the lead in an experimental musical that his friend was writing. John found it curious that the script wasn't even finished and they already had the money to get started. But then he saw the musical numbers and completely fell in love with them. After two years as Danny, it would be nice to play a different character.

They finally find their spots, climbing over some people to get there.

"I can't believe she's really singing to all these people." He says, looking around and smiling.

"I can't believe I left precious hours of writing for this." Puck says, running a hand over his eyes.

"I can't believe you're in the biggest event of Cinema and you're thinking about an unfinished script back in the trailer!" Julian says, pissed. "Look out there, some of your biggest idols are here! We saw Tarantino outside! Merryl Streep is right there in the front seats!"

"Okay, 'right there' is not exactly accurate; she's almost a whole mile away from us." John points out.

"Oh, come on, none of us would even be here if it wasn't for Kate." Julian says, turning to John. "We're not big shot L.A. guys, this is the best place she could get us."

Just then the lights turn off. Everybody grows silent.

"Where'd you get the idea that Merryl Streep is one of my biggest idols?" Puck says suddenly. John shushes him and watches the screen on stage.

In any other occasion he would be amazed to be in here, but today he's really anxious. It's really hard to concentrate on the beauty of all this when he knows that his best friend from the cradle will come out from the back curtain of the theater to sing to the some of the most influential people in the art world.

So he half-heartedly enjoys the ceremony until the first notes of"Don't Rain On My Parade" start to echo in the theater. Suddenly her voice fills the theater and it's pure perfection. She's so into it, so _right there_ that it's hard not to let the tears in his eyes fall. He avoids looking at Julian or Puck and watches her the whole time. When it's over, the whole theater applauds enthusiastically. He's still trying not to let the two men sitting at his left notice that he's crying, so he makes a point of not making eye contact with them until the ceremony is over.

"Boy, your friend can sing." Julian says to John after it ends and all the lights are turned back on.

"She's really something, isn't she?" he says, smiling. He gets up from his chair while Julian does the same. He sees Kate coming in the distance from wherever she was watching the ceremony (probably the VIP aisle with ABC's executives, he thinks) and going to the three of them.

"John, Peter wants to talk to you, he said he'll be at ABC's wrap party after this." She tells him.

"Sure, I'll find him." He answers and Kate and he walk to the exit.

Julian looks at Puck, who's still sitting in the chair. "Hey, aren't you coming? Wrap party, we're Peter's new favorite boys now!"

Puck doesn't look at him. "I'm not his boy; you are."

Julian grimaces playfully. "Yeah, well, there's that little script thing that's getting in your way."

Puck suddenly gets up. "I've got to go home."

"What?"

"I can't make it to the party." Puck says. "Can I get your car?"

"How am I supposed to go home?"

"Julian, trust me, I need to get home now." Puck tells him in a voice Julian's seen him use a few times in all these years. "Tell Kate and Peter I'll have this script fully written on their desks by Monday."

Julian stares at his friend for a second, time enough to realize that he means what he's saying. He hands him his car keys. "What about the black hole?"

Puck looks at the car keys in his hand. "It just went away a few minutes ago."

Julian smiles as Puck heads to the exit. With a last look at the theater, he walks toward the exit too.

* * *

><p>"Here it is."<p>

Kate looks at the papers Puck has just put on her desk. Then lifting her eyes to him she says, "Great, it took you only what, three months to get this done?"

"Hey, I got it finished, I'm off the hook. You and Peter can stop hating me now, okay?" Puck says.

"I don't hate you. It takes a lot of energy to hate someone. I just really don't care about you at all."

"What have I ever done to you?" he asks her, putting his hands on his waist.

"You're a lazy, full of yourself, crass, sexist man whore and trust me, that list could go on for hours."

"So you don't like me personally."

"No."

"But professionally?"

Kate looks at the script. "You screwed up the deadline."

"Because writing is a little more complicated than going to the beach."

"Yeah, and while I appreciate the whole lovely story of how you struggled to get this character written, all the artist pain you felt, I'm glad we're ready to start auditions." She goes through the script. "How's this new character like?"

Puck swallows. "It's a woman. Her name's Bojana. It's all really in the script."

"Okay. I'll read it, and I'll have Peter read it and then we can gather the cast and crew to see the girls for the character."

Puck doesn't say anything. He really doesn't feel like going through tons of girls until they find the one. They've had auditions to all the parts except John's, so he's really sick of watching terrible actors and actresses. Plus, he's already asked John to bring his friend who sang on the Oscars on Friday to the auditions. It's probably just a matter of time until they see that she's perfect for the character.

"Okay, but I'm choosing not to be there for the auditions."

"Why?" Kate asks him. "It's your damn script."

He doesn't even know why he doesn't want to be around for auditions. "I'll leave this choice to you."

* * *

><p>Rachel doesn't get nervous. Ever. She's been performing her whole life and she knows it is what she was born to do. She started ballet classes when she was three years old. She had singing lessons when she was three and a half. She won her first singing competition at age five. She doesn't love anything else more than this feeling, the thrill of being seconds away from performing.<p>

She looks right ahead of her. She's backstage and there's this blonde girl auditioning on stage. She's not terrible; her voice is really good, actually. She's fairly tall and has pretty nice boobs. Rachel looks at her own, feeling something burn inside her. Then she looks at her feet. She knows she should've worn heels for this. She read somewhere that tall women have at average 60% more chances of getting cast in theater.

She tries to get rid of these thoughts. The blonde performing on stage is clearly having trouble to achieve the high F she's supposed to in her song. And her dance moves aren't that great. Rachel knows she can do better than that. She _will _do better than that.

"Jesus, I can hear your heavy thoughts from here." A voice says behind her. She smiles and doesn't even turn to him.

John gets closer to where she's standing and looks at the blonde girl for a second. "Nope, she doesn't get better if you watch her from here."

Rachel laughs at that and bites her lip, looking at her friend. "Who's out there?"

"The cast, our musical producer and our senior producer." He answers her. She doesn't say anything, so he goes on. "Rach, you were asked to be here. You're better than all of the girls we saw today."

"Yeah, well, I sang a pretty awesome song at the Oscars. It's easy to look awesome when you're singing Barbra." She pouts a little, looking at John.

"No, it isn't." he tells her. "You make yourself look awesome because you're one of a kind, but most people would make Barbra cry in horror from diva heaven if they tried it."

She smiles at John. He's been doing this for almost twenty years now, this thing where he manages to give her confidence and his shoulders for her to cry and lean on, even if for the past three years he had been living in L.A. because of the musical he got cast for. They had grown up together in Ohio, had studied together, and had gone through high school in Ohio and Juilliard after that. Rachel still remembers the waterfalls when they received their letters of acceptance. She could easily point that moment as one of the happiest of her life, along with the day they won Nationals with the glee club and, of course, when she sang "Don't Rain on My Parade" to a theater full of her idols.

She had finished performing on an amateur production of Wicked when it happened. One of the organizers of the award said one of their guest stars wouldn't be able to sing the song and asked her if she was willing to do it. She thought it was a joke at first, but then the guy gave her his card and told her to call him when the shock part was over. She remained frozen for what felt like hours before she managed to call John and ask him to meet her in a pub.

So they stared at the card the whole evening before she could gather the courage to call the guy. He recognized her voice immediately and gave her more details about his proposal, saying the organization of the party would pay for everything, her flight to L.A., the hotel she would stay in, her dress, everything. She asked him one last time if the whole thing wasn't just a joke.

It felt like a dream, to perform to the most important and powerful people in show business, to have so many eyes on her.

If she only knew nothing comes that easy.

The next day she found out the offer was made because the Academy wanted to retaliate critics about how they only awarded the same authors and movies and plays every time. That new blood wasn't welcome to win awards and that they were a bunch of conservative dinosaurs in charge of awarding artists. So they had called her, an unknown lead from an off-Broadway musical to sing at the Oscars and try to change that image.

She cried two days straight after that. She checked out of her hotel and was planning on never coming back to L.A. again. Too much sun, too much tan.

And then John said that a friend of his was producing a musical. He told her he had been cast by him a few weeks ago and that the guy's friend had asked him to bring her to an audition. She declined at first, saying L.A. was dead to her, but the possibility to act with her best friend made her reconsider it.

So there she was, waiting to be called on stage by a bunch of people she had never seen before. John hugs her before going back to the audience and she watches him, hoping everything goes well. The last thing she needs right now is another punch on the stomach.

"Rachel Berry." A voice calls from the audience.

She takes a deep breath before walking to the center of the stage where the light is. She can't see anything or anyone in the audience. She tries to adjust her eyes in the brightness and can finally make out who's talking to her from a table in the middle of the audience. A guy with brown, messy hair that she thinks should get cut yesterday and brown eyes. He's wearing a flannel shirt and looks tall.

"I'm Julian. This is Kate." The guy says, pointing to the woman next to her. Rachel smiles at them. The woman has brown, long wavy hair and green eyes. She's dressed up formally. Julian is looking at what she imagines to be her résumé.

"Nice to meet you." Rachel says. She spots more people in the audience, John among them. He gives her a little smile. She lifts her eyes to Kate and Julian. "Today I'll be singing '_Somewhere'_."

"No, you won't." Julian raises his hand, still not looking away from the papers on the table.

Rachel scoffs a little. "Excuse me?"

"It says here that your whole experience is turned to classic Broadway musicals. Today let's try to get you out of your comfort zone a little." He looks up at her.

She looks at John, who seems mildly amused. But Rachel Berry is nothing if not adaptable.

"Sure. What would you like me to sing for you today?" she asks him politely.

Julian glances thoughtfully at Kate before looking at her and saying, "Sing me some rock'n'roll. Anything you'd like. I'm sure our band will be thrilled to back you up."

Some of the guys sitting in the audience go to the stage where the instruments are. A black, tall, charming guy stops in front of her. "What is it going to be?" he asks her with a smirk.

"Did he ask all of the girls to sing what he wanted?" she asks him in a low voice.

"Nope. Just you." He smirks even more. "I'm Matt. I do the drums." Rachel smiles a little uncomfortable under his gaze. He seems younger than her, but really confident. She wonders if that's what people feel when they interact with her for the first time.

"Nice to meet you." She looks up at Julian and Kate, who are currently talking to each other. With one last daring look to them, she turns to Matt. "Aerosmith's _Dream On_, will you?"

Matt raises his eyebrows, seeming both surprised and aroused. "Yes, madam."

* * *

><p>"So?" Rachel asks John as he leaves the theater and finds her outside in the parking lot waiting for him.<p>

John looks at her, his face unreadable.

"John, c'mon." she pleads. "Just say it, okay?"

He smiles. "Congratulations, Rachel Berry. You just got a room with a republican, a democrat, a christian and an atheist to agree on something. We'll be co-stars!"

Rachel squeaks and jumps, hugging John, who lifts her from the floor. "Oh my god! This is amazing!", she says. She can't believe she got cast in a musical and will get to share it with John. It's too good to be true.

He puts her down and looks at her. "How was the reunion? Who said what? How many votes did I get?"

"All of them."

"Even that bastard Julian?" Rachel asks, smiling big.

John laughs. "He was testing you, Rachel. He already saw you on the Oscars, he was just being an ass. But guess what? You nailed the song and you made him swallow his tongue. He looked like Simon in American Idol when he has to vote yes for someone he likes."

She laughs too, now. "Did your writer friend who asked me to audition vote too?" she asks him, walking to his car.

"No, he wasn't there, actually."

She stops on her tracks and holds John's arm to stop him too. "What?"

"He didn't come to today's auditions."

"Why the hell not?" she asks John, feeling suddenly angry. "He asked me here and didn't even bother to show up?" She's feeling something really close to rejection now. It's not pleasant, not when she is who she is and had gone through what she has in the past. She knows she's not that little girl from high school anymore, but some wounds are hard to heal.

"Rach, come on, you already got the part, what difference does it make?"

She scoffs. "I want to talk to this guy. What'd you say his name was?"

"Puck. Noah Puckerman." John sighs, probably knowing she won't let this go.

"Do you know when he's planning on coming here again?"

"I think he's actually coming in a couple of hours. He locks himself in his office when the theater is empty to write."

Rachel looks at the back door of the theater. "Okay. I'll stay, then." She unconsciously takes her hair in her hands.

"And you'll do what, exactly?"

She doesn't say anything for a second. "I don't know yet. I guess I'll try to show him I'm good enough."

John looks at her. "He knows you are. He wouldn't have asked you here if you weren't. You managed to convince Julian, who's just as a perfectionist freak as you are. Do you really think Puck will be a problem?"

"I don't care. I want to show him." With that, she leaves towards the back door of the theater.

* * *

><p>Puck opens the door of the theater, his head pounding a little. He spent last night drinking and celebrating in the pub near the theater for having finally written the script. Julian had been there too, along with John and Matt, but they had left early because they had a whole day of auditions ahead of them. Julian had asked him why he chose not to be there for the last day of auditions after going through all the other days of auditions before. He'd said he really didn't care what girl they chose. Julian had looked at him cryptically, wearing that expression he used when he knew something else was up but chose not to press any further. So he left the pub kind of drunk and went home alone, only to wake up with a massive headache that hadn't left him until now.<p>

His office is in a room that has a big window from where he has a privileged view of the stage. To get there, however, he needs to cross the audience until the little stairs in the back that took him up there. Julian's office is just beside his. He knows he'll be alone and he appreciates it. He needs the silence to work on this movie script he's been thinking about since Friday.

He doesn't see her right away when he enters the theater. It's only when he gets closer to the stage that he notices the little brunette sitting on the edge of it, legs swinging. He stops on his tracks as she notices him too. He feels the urge to run in the opposite direction and it hits him all at once. _She_ was the reason he didn't want to be here today.

They stare at each other for a second in silence.

Rachel gets down from the stage and walks to where he's standing, still looking at him. "Hi. I'm Rachel. I'll play Bojana."

He tries to smile at her, not knowing if he actually did it. "Puck."

"Why weren't you here today?" she asks him flat out.

Okay, it's like she's in his mind or something. He just had this epiphany thing and found out why he wasn't here today, so it's not like he's going to tell her she was the reason he wasn't there. He's having a hard time acknowledging it himself, and part of him is very confused that his heart is beating really fucking fast right now.

"I had plans." He says simply.

"Aren't you a producer?"

"Not really, just a writer. I try to stay away from it as best as I can."

She raises her eyebrows. "You wrote the characters, you don't want to know who will play them?"

He swallows. "I trust the crew and cast to make that decision wisely."

Rachel scoffs. "What if I suck? What if you don't like what you see, what if I don't fit the character for you?"

He's the one who laughs a little now, looking down. He doesn't think he's able to explain her why that's impossible exactly.

"I'm going to perform for you right now." She tells him, walking and climbing up on stage. "In fact, I'll sing a song from your musical, composed by your lovely musician friend who asked me to get out of my comfort zone and sing something different from Broadway classics."

"He did that, huh?" Puck says, watching her as she walks to a little radio on a table.

"Too bad for him I can reach the same notes Steven Tyler's able to."

Her confidence's sexy, he decides. Also her legs, which are peeking from the light blue dress she's wearing. Rachel takes a deep breath and looks directly at him. Then she turns on the radio as Bojana's solo song fills the quiet theater.

He can't get enough of this, really. The feeling of having her performing exclusively for him in an empty theater is more than he can describe. He starts to think that maybe he didn't come to auditions today because he didn't want to meet the woman behind all the talent he saw in the Oscars, that if she turned out to be a pain in the ass he'd be really disappointed. But a few seconds of interaction with her had made him want to spend more time with her. This and the fact that his head is going thousands of miles an hour right now with scenes and sketches for movies. His head starts to spin when he thinks about all the possibilities he could use her for, all the characters she'd be able to perform. Like right now, he's thinking about this story about this girl and this guy who live in two different buildings in the same street and are perfect for each other, with common interests and pet peeves but spend the whole movie meeting the wrong people and getting involved in wrong relationships.

See? He's thinking about stories that don't really apply to his life. And as a guy who's always writing about things he's familiar with, he's really amazed with how she gets him to come up with scenarios that he's never really considered before.

The final note of the song plays as she sings with it. He claps and she smiles at him proudly from the stage.

"So?" she asks him. "Am I really Bojana?"

He smiles at her, shaking his head a little. "There's nobody else better on the planet to play her."

Rachel smiles too.


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N.: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my dear friend Miss Nii, who has been an incredible listener and practically wrote this chapter with me. She's probably going to see herself in a lot of lines in this chapter and that's totally expected. And for those who enjoy Sherlock Holmes fanfictions and read Portuguese, I suggest you take a look at some of her work. **

**Reviews are always welcome.**

"Why am I here again?" Julian asks Kate as they both sit in the reunion room in ABC's building.

She glares at him, leaning forward on the table. "Advertisers, Julian. They're our biggest income."

"Yes, I got that part." He tells her. "But we're producing a musical, what kind of advertisement do these guys expect? Some line in the play about how great GM cars are?"

Kate rolls her eyes at him. "Yeah, that's exactly what they expect. Especially when we're dealing with a communist country in Eastern Europe."

She smiles wickedly at him from across the table. They've been spending a lot of time together lately dealing with the bureaucratic details of the play. Personally, Julian finds it boring and totally unrelated from the artistic part of the musical, which is what he really likes to do. They've been rehearsing for almost four weeks now, and he's been really busy sharing his time between rehearsing the songs with the band and cast and dealing with all the practical issues with Kate.

His thoughts vanish when Peter enters the room with two guys dressed in suits and holding expensive cases. They both stand up and they all shake hands.

"Kate Mitchell, Julian Cortez, this is Charlie Bender and Ian Scott." Peter introduces them. "They're representing Gucci and Armani, respectively."

They all sit down. "Aren't those clothing companies?" Julian asks them, confused.

"Yes, they are." Peter says, smiling. "They're interested in being your partners in the musical."

"It's nothing invasive, really." The taller guy says in a strong voice. "We're just hoping for some inclusions here and there with your cast using our articles sporadically in public appearances."

"You'll have to go to parties, meetings, press calls, and we would be very happy to provide you guys some great suits, dresses and shoes." The other guy says.

Julian looks at Kate. "They want us to dress up in their clothes?"

"Pretty much, yes." She tells him.

He doesn't like the sound of that. "I don't know, guys, that does feel a little invasive."

"It's all part of the business, Cortez." Peter says, smiling at the advertisers. "You're new to this, I know, but it's just the way things work."

"I know it is." Julian answers. "I've seen the Oscars and the Golden Globes, I've seen the red carpets and I know how it works. I'm just saying I don't know if the cast and crew will enjoy having you trying to dress them up like your puppets."

There's an awkward moment of silence.

"Well, why don't we give him some time to absorb all this?" Peter smiles, getting up and shaking the executive's hands. "Like I said, he's a newbie. I'll walk you out, came on." As he walks to the door, he looks back and shoots Kate a look that makes Julian think that she's in trouble.

"Beautiful." Kate says, running a hand on her eyes and looking up at him. "All of it, really. The individuality that will be lost once all of you show up dressed up in Gucci and Armani in the wrap parties and awards. The feeling that you'll be a part of the unfair, disgusting and empty world of fashion while there are thousands of political questions that you could be focusing on right now. I get it. I really do. But things need to get paid. We need the money, Julian. We need to play by the rules of the game if we want to change it. If we want to get relevant enough to use our voice to turn this world upside down later, we need their money. And I know that all your artist friends from the cast will not like that, but I need you to be a leader and go there and convince them. Can you do that? "

Julian stares at her. "You know, you look like one of them, but you sound like one of us."

Kate smiles at him. He finds out he really likes when she does it.

* * *

><p>John and Rachel are lying on his bed, looking through the newspaper for houses to rent nearer the theater. He's been living in an apartment since he moved to L.A. three years ago and Rachel has been living with him since she came to town four weeks earlier. She had told him she would need a house because she hasn't lived in one for years, since the left her father's house eight years ago. She's been living in either dorms or apartments and now that she's staying for at least months in LA, she's going to get herself a house.<p>

"I like this one." He tells her, showing her the picture of it along with the specifics down the picture.

"Me too." She says, smiling at him. "Dad's given me green light to make an offer. Of course I will have to get more people to share rent with me."

"You could talk to Matt. He said he's dying to leave his parents house. It's probably not easy to be the son of the boss."

"Imagine what's like to have Peter Rudolph as your father." She says, thinking about what portion of Matthew's explosive, impulsive behavior might derivate from this need to go in the opposite direction of what Peter educated him to be.

"I think I know one or two things about family issues." John says.

Rachel turns to him. He closes his eyes for a second and says, "My parents are coming to town. My father just called me yesterday saying they'd try to get in the first flight they could."

"Just like that?"

"He said he wanted to see what this new play's like."

She stares at him. "Look, I don't know if it's my place to tell you that, but you need to figure things out with your family. You keep them away, you don't even let them be around to be proud of you."

"It's cause I know what my family's like, Rachel." He says, putting both hands on his eyes. "Mom's gonna ask me if I need money and it'll take every drop of strength in my body to not tell her that I could buy their entire neighborhood if I wanted to. Then my father is going to ask if I'm tapping some hottie and then will ask me if I really want to go on with this actor thing. I've been acting for five years and they still think it's a phase. I've earned more money than him in thirty years of work back in Ohio and he'll still ask me when I'm going to start to make something serious for a job."

Rachel closes her eyes for a second too. She's been away from John for the past three years but it's not like she doesn't know what he's being through in the past. They've been bullied together in high school, John for being gay and her for being, well… her. John had never told his family that he was gay, so all the guys he'd gone out with had been kept a secret. Rachel's house had always been the place where he'd go to do whatever concerning the arts, play rehearsals, voice trainings, dance trainings. She thinks how horrible it must be to grow up in a home where your artistic aspirations weren't taken seriously. And still somehow John managed to become this incredible performer. She smiles at her friend, hugging him on the bed.

"Don't worry." She assures him. "I'll be with you the whole time. I'll entertain them and show them around and make sure they understand how awesome theater is."

"Oh, they do think theater is awesome. As long as their son isn't the one doing it."

She laughs against his neck.

So that's how they find themselves in a restaurant the next day, having dinner with his parents after picking them up from the airport and taking them to their hotel.

John raises his fork to his mouth, smiling nervously, while Rachel, who's been doing a fine job charming the hell out of them all evening, does pretty much all the talking. John knows his parents have always loved Rachel. He also knows they'd always hoped that one day he would come home and introduce her as his girlfriend.

It's really a pleasure to have you here, Mr. and Mrs. Webber." Rachel says, smiling at both of his parents. "I can't believe you've never come to LA before!"

"Yeah, it's not like our Johnny here invites us." Mrs. Webber says, glancing at John.

"Mom, I've told you a thousand times, I'm almost never home. I don't cook, my house is a mess, you wouldn't want to spend two days with me."

"Is that why you booked us a hotel room instead of letting us stay with you?" Mr. Webber asks him, putting his arms over the table.

"My place is small, Dad. It's got two rooms and Rachel's in one of them."

"So you guys are living together?" John's father asks them with a pleased expression.

"No, we're not living together. She's just staying with me until she finds a place for herself." He says, glancing at Rachel, who seems mildly amused.

"Did I mention we're going to be co-stars?" Rachel says.

Mr. and Mrs. Webber don't say anything.

"You know, in the play." She clarifies.

"They don't know what that means." John tells her.

"Well, if you bothered to include us in whatever it is that you do here, we would know." Mr. Webber says, seeming angry.

"Oh my god, dad, I don't want to have this fight for the thousandth time." John says, covering his face with both hands for a second. He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes again. "Can we just eat, please?"

Everybody remains silent for the rest of the meal. The ride back to their hotel is pretty awkward, too, and nobody says anything until Mr. Webber leaves the car without a word and John's mom kisses his cheek before leaving the car, too. Rachel and John watch them as they enter the hotel.

"I'm really sorry." She whispers.

He shakes his head. "Just one more day until they leave."

She watches him. "John…"

"I never wanted this, you know. Every time I think about going back to Ohio to visit or something, I just feel so… trapped. I never wanted to feel this way about home. Except Lima doesn't feel like home anymore."

Rachel doesn't really know what to say to this. As the self-centered girl she's always been, she finds it pretty hard to give advice about something she can't really relate to. It's been a long time since she's been in Ohio with John. Maybe she should have noticed that he had been pulling away from his family for a while now. So she tries to comfort him the best way she knows how.

"Chicago or West Side Story when we get home?"

He looks over at her. "Will there be popcorn included?"

She laughs as he turns on the car. "Definitely."

* * *

><p>"Five, six, seven, eight!"<p>

All the cast is rehearsing their dance steps for one of the musical numbers. It's a song about remaining silent, about being lied to and not being able to yell. Puck thinks they're nailing it from where he's sitting in the audience, but Julian looks like a madman with his guitar yelling at the rest of the band. Their choreographer, Lisa, steps aside when Julian stops playing.

"Is he always like that?" she asks, sitting next to Puck in the front row.

"He thinks if the musical part is not perfect than none of the acts will be."

"We're rehearsing dance steps. They're doing great. Why can't he rehearse with the band later?"

Puck smiles a little. "He's a little bit of a control freak. He wants everything to be perfectly synchronized."

"Even if that means we'll never leave this theater?"

Puck laughs a little, turning and lifting his eyes to look at her. He notices she's staring at his mouth. Then she lifts her eyes and seems a little uncomfortable.

Honestly, he's never thought of Lisa in a romantic way. Sure, she's a great dancer and hot, and maybe one or two times he caught himself thinking that she'd be really elastic in bed, but you know, that's just his way of analyzing women in general. He's done that with all the women from the cast, actually. But he's never really considered going after any of them, not when they're all working together. It's a lot easier to dump someone you'll never see again in your life than someone you work with every day.

"Hi. Hey!" A voice says next to them, trying to get their attention.

And then reality hits him when he looks at the little brunette standing next to Lisa and him.

"What's up, Rachel?" Lisa says, smiling at her.

"Aren't you the choreographer here?"

"Uh, yes." Lisa answers, standing up.

"So can you please tell our musical producer that he's not in charge of how we dance, please?"

"Hey, get your ass back here, Berry!" Julian yells from the stage.

"Hey, hey, come on, why don't we take a break?" Puck says, getting up too. "Be back in 20, guys."

The band settles down their instruments and Julian leaves the theater giving Rachel a death glare. She unconsciously takes her hand to her hair and goes over to where John is on stage. Puck watches her, amused, as she and John go backstage together. Then he notices Lisa's watching him.

"What's your thing with her?"

He nearly chokes. "What? With Rachel?"

"You never take your eyes of her in rehearsals. Everybody's dancing and singing and being awesome and you just watch her."

He starts to answer, but then he figures he doesn't really know what to say. Probably because what Lisa's just said is totally news to him. He and Rachel have flirted during these weeks of rehearsal, but it's not like he hasn't flirted with other women too. She has been spending a lot of time in his office before and after rehearsals, and it's been really fun to have her around. She talks about the musicals she loves, and can't believe him when he says he's never watched any Barbra Streisand's movies. She promises him she'll bring _Funny Girl_ the next day and they end up watching it in an AV room in ABC's building. He doesn't try anything, really, and it scares him a little that he's looking at her instead of at the screen when she says how beautiful Barbra is.

Lisa picks up on his loss of words and smiles. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me." With that, she climbs up on stage and leaves to the dressing rooms.

He suddenly feels the need to get out of this theater for a while, too. He goes to the cafeteria and finds Julian there, getting coffee alone.

"Hey." Puck says, walking with him as they leave the cafeteria.

"Hi."

He looks over at Julian. "What's going on? You're being an ass today."

"I'm trying to rehearse, Puck. I'm sorry, but someone's gotta be the bad guy sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're hardly in the theater. You just show up to direct the scenes, then you lock yourself in your office, you're almost never there for the musical numbers, you don't have to be the ass for them!"

"Well, pardon me for sticking with the part that I like!"

"You think I liked having to convince them to wear Gucci and Armani for the next months? You think I enjoyed having to hear Berry bitching about how many animals would have to be killed so they could put on a leather jacket? I don't like that part at all."

"Then why do you do it?" Puck asks him, confused. "Meetings with executives? Meetings with Peter? You've spending a lot of time with Kate doing all this shit you don't even like."

Julian opens his mouth as if to answer properly, but then shuts it. Puck raises his eyebrows. Is it him or is his friend in the same shitty place he found himself in just a few minutes ago?

"Except... you endure all this because it's a way to spend time with her." He says, smiling a little.

Julian looks over at him with a dangerous expression. "You want to talk about crushes?"

Puck swallows. "Nope."

"Can we get back to the theater?"

"Yep."

* * *

><p>Rehearsals end for the day and the whole cast and crew are getting their stuff together to leave the theater. Rachel looks over to where Julian is packing his guitar. Then she glances at John, who says he'll see her in the car after she changes.<p>

She approaches Julian slowly as everybody's leaving the stage. "I need your help."

He gives her a dismissive look over his shoulder. "Really? Little miss perfect needs me? I'm just your musical producer, after all."

"Stop it." She says, turning to face him. "I need your help, Julian. You know I wouldn't be coming to you if I had another choice."

"Is that a selling point?" he asks her, eyebrows raised.

She ignores his question. "I need you to come up with a number for John to perform. His parents are in LA and they don't really get what John loves about all this, they don't support him at all." She looks at the empty audience, feeling suddenly energetic. "If we could find a way to show them what it is to love about theater, what's so magical about it…" she looks back at him. "He's my best friend. I need to try to do this for him."

Julian doesn't say anything. He remains silent for a few seconds before nodding. "Okay. I'll come up with something in the morning and show you. Then we can rehearse with the band and present it tomorrow night."

She smiles, relieved. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."

Julian nods and leaves the theater. She remains on stage for a few seconds before going to her dressing room.

* * *

><p>"What's this?" Matt asks, looking at the papers Rachel's handing out the next day. It's early and rehearsals are only starting in one hour. The only ones in the theater are Matt, Lisa, Philip (John's understudy), Alex and Simon (bass and electric guitar, respectively). Rachel hands each one of them a paper before going up on stage and clearing her throat.<p>

"What you've got in your hands, fellow cast and crew members, is a form that I'll ask you to fill in so I can start to pick who'll be living in my place. It's got plenty of bedrooms and rent won't be expensive. I can't afford this house on my own and you've been saying that you need somewhere to live, so here it is."

"Favorite musical? Why is it relevant?" Lisa asks Rachel with a confused expression.

"Yes, I love animals." Matt says, smiling smugly. "On my plate."

Rachel jaw drops. "Okay, you've just lost ten points in my score system, Matthew!"

"Does your place have a garage?" Simon asks her. "Cause we kind of need the space to rehearse."

"It does." She turns to the rest of them. "I expect this paper totally filled by the end of the day, okay?"

Lisa rolls her eyes.

"Morning, kids." Julian says, arriving in the theater. He goes to the desk in the middle of the audience and drops his guitar case on it.

Rachel goes over to where he is. "Did you do that thing we talked about yesterday?"

"Yes. In fact, I'm talking to the cast and crew right now." He looks around. "Where's John?"

"In his dressing room. He should be here any minute now."

"Did you talk to him?" Julian asks her, sitting on the chair.

Rachel bites her lip nervously. "Uh, not really. I was hoping you would do it."

"Why? It was your idea."

"I know, I just… you should've have seen him yesterday, he was really down and kind of hopeless. I think I'll have a hard time trying to convince him that it'll do more good than bad. You, on the other hand…" she trails.

"Have known the guy for only three months? Don't really know what could be said to really hit him? Was only in charge of coming up with the number?"

"Julian."

He looks up at her. "What?"

She doesn't say anything for a second. He doesn't like where this is going.

"I know about your father. I know you have daddy issues, too." She says in a low voice. "I thought that maybe you could empathize and say whatever he needs to hear. I've got two dads who I love to death and have always supported me with what I wanted to do, while and you and John, on the other hand…"

"Stop." He cuts her. Rachel grimaces a little, maybe realizing she'd gone too far. What he says, however, surprises her. "I'll talk to him." He gets up and leaves, going backstage to the dressing rooms.

Rachel doesn't know what he said to John, but she's really relieved when they come back twenty minutes later and the cast spend all day rehearsing Julian's number. It's a really great number, where she and the rest of the cast do back vocals as John sings his heart out, mixing same nice dance steps that Lisa works with him. And by the end of that day, after Mr. and Mrs. Webber arrive in the theater and she shows them around, she makes them sit in the audience before she goes backstage and the lights go off. She goes to her mark and looks over at John, who's staring right at the curtain in front of him. He glances at her and she smiles at him reassuringly. To think that in a few weeks they'll be doing this to a crowded theater gives her a thrill she hasn't felt in a while.

The song starts as the curtain is opened and there's a spotlight in John's direction in the center of the stage. He starts singing the song, pouring his heart out, and it's just amazing. Really, she doesn't think that only because he's her friend. His stage presence is remarkable. She remembers back in high school when she thought he was his only truly competition in glee club.

She hears someone yelling and looks over to the audience.

"Stop it. STOP IT, NOW!"

The music stops and John stops singing, along with the back vocals. Mr. Weber gets up from where he's sitting on stage and stares at his son.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mr. Webber asks John with his voice trembling.

John seems too stunned to even say anything, along with everybody else in the theater.

"Your brother left to Afghanistan last Thursday. He's going to be there for the next three months." Rachel looks over at John, who seems wordless.

"He didn't get in touch with you before he left because he never felt you wanted us to be part of your life." Mr. Webber sniffs a little. "I'm sorry, John, but I can't find it in me to enjoy all this when your brother might get killed in Kandahar while you're here tapping your feet and smiling happily in Los Angeles."

When John speaks again, and to Rachel it seems like a lifetime after, the tone he uses is one she's never heard before.

"I'm against the war he chose to fight, dad. I'm against the way our government chooses to spend our money in wars when the same money could be used for improvements in our health system or social security. I don't think we're entitled to violate UN resolutions or the rights of the people from those countries. And I think art has always been crucial to change the world in more deeply, lasting and beautiful ways than wars will ever be able to. I've joined my own army. This is my battalion, dad." John points at the theater and at the people on stage with him. "This is where I fight everyday against narrow-minded, ignorant and violent people like you who think there will ever be a reason to kill human beings."

Rachel is hypnotized by John, though his expression is one of so much pain she can barely stand to look at him. Nobody says anything or even breathe.

Mr. Webber's eyes are totally wet with tears. Father and son stare at each other, breathing heavily.

"You're no longer my son." He says and gets up to leave the theater.

"Jack!" Mrs. Webber shouts, going after her husband. Wife and husband leave the theater as the cast and musicians stand on stage, not sure of what to do. Rachel runs to John and hugs him tightly. "I _so_ sorry."

"I guess we should call it a day." Julian mumbles, staring at John.

Slowly, they all go to the dressing rooms except for Rachel and John. After a few minutes, they hear a voice from the theater entrance. "Johnny?"

He looks over to where the voice is coming from and sees his mother standing there, crying her eyes out and looking at him.

He glances at Rachel. "I'll go change. Call me if you need anything." She says, squeezing his hands and leaving the stage.

He takes a deep breath before getting down from the stage and going towards his mother. He feels exhausted, both physically and emotionally, so he crashes himself against his mother in one of those hugs he only remembers giving her when he was little and someone bullied him in school. If only he knew that the biggest bully he'd have to fight against would be his own father. He suddenly feels dirty, ashamed of being who he is and doing what he does. Suddenly his speech from earlier seems empty and meaningless. He would give anything to be whoever his father wanted him to be, whatever made him happy.

"He's in a cab outside. I said I wanted to say goodbye to you." Mrs. Webber says. "We'll leave in two hours to the airport."

He leans back, brushing the tears from her eyes. "I'm really sorry for all this, mom."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." She tells him, cupping his head between her hands. "John, I mean it. You father might never get it, but I do. This is who you are. This is what you were born to do. I don't know if I have ever made that clear, but I'm really proud of the performer you've become. I've always liked to listen to you singing."

He can't prevent the tears that come from his eyes this time. He doesn't remember his mother saying these words, not ever. What he feels hearing this is more than he can describe.

"Thank you, mom."

She sniffs, letting go of his face. "I have to go."

John walks with her until the door that ends in the parking lot. She turns around to look at him. "Will you be okay? Do you need any money?"

He makes a sound halfway through a sniff and a laugh. He looks at his mom, but he's not feeling angry at that question anymore and doesn't feel like being mean. "No, mom, I'm fine. Thanks, though."

She gives him a kiss on the cheek before walking away into the warm evening.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N[2].: Wow! This was a very energy dragging chapter. Hope you guys enjoyed it, because things will get lighter next chapter. And interesting. ;)<strong>


	4. Chapter 4 - Part I

**A/N.: I want to apologize for the incredible amount of time since my last update. That said, please don't abandon this fic. I have so many great ideas and storylines for these characters. And reviews help me get even more inspired. **

**Chapter 4 – Part I**

"We need a party."

They're all sitting on random spots in the audience. It's been a week since John's parents left town and rehearsals have been even more exhaustive than they have been since then. They've been rehearsing with all the scenarios they will actually use for the play, so they had to redo all their marks. Julian's been even more anal about every single detail on the musical numbers, so they have to rehearse each one of them at least three times a day, coordinating the singing and the dancing non-stop; Lisa has made them stay in practice extra hours almost every day. Even Puck's stage directing has become more exhausting as well, so a scene that lasts five minutes takes almost one hour and a half to get done.

All in all it's like their brains are frying. Cast and musicians are on a break because Kate had her assistant came to the theater and asked Puck and Julian into come to her office for a second. So they had dragged themselves to the seats in the audience and nobody had said anything until now.

"Seriously," Matt goes on, adjusting himself in the seat. "I haven't interacted with anybody from outside this theater in weeks. I haven't _been_ anywhere else but here in weeks!"

"So what, we all want this be perfect, big deal." Rachel says with her eyes closed and her head leaning in the seat.

"Sure, but we could also have some fun, too." He tells her, smiling and poking her with his foot. She opens her eyes and looks at him, punching his leg. "Come on, guys, we have this weekend off. We can throw a party on Saturday and then sleep through Sunday."

"Do you really think I'll be using my sleeping time to waste even more energy on a party?" Philip asks him, yawning bigly.

"Guys, listen to me. We need to have fun." Matt pleads, looking around at everyone. "We need to get drunk and do stupid and illogical things. We need to relax for a while."

"Where would it be?" John asks him with his legs up on the seat in front of him.

"At Rachel's, of course." he answers.

"Excuse me?" She hisses, looking over at Matt. "The house is a mess. I haven't even started unpacking anything."

"So we'll help you. We'll all go over there tomorrow morning since we're all gonna live there too and help you unpack. Then the place will be shinning by the time it gets dark and perfect for having some guests over."

"I could use a party." Lisa says, sighing. "I haven't danced anything different from your choreographies in weeks."

"So we have a deal?" Matt asks everyone hopefully. They all shake heads. He smiles and puts his arms behind his head. "You can be uptight all you want in here, but this weekend, shit's gonna hit the fan!"

Everybody stares at him. "What? I'm black. I'm allowed to say these things."

* * *

><p>"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Puck says.<p>

"Kate, I don't think –"Julian reasons with her. "We don't have time for this, you can't ask us to do that."

They're in Kate's office, having been called there in the middle of rehearsal by her assistant, which pissed Puck off but had Julian interrupting the number they were doing to and insisting they went there after he announced a half hour break.

"I'm sorry, guys, but Peter said it gives ABC a lot of credit with public opinion and that's one of the most important things a network can get." She looks at them and sees their faces haven't changed at all. "Come on, you've been college guys, wouldn't you have loved to have contact with some professionals of the field you were studying?"

"I think I would understand if they were two weeks away from their premiere and in no conditions of receiving undergrads in their theater!" Puck says in an angry tone.

"They won't get in your way!" she answers. "They'll just observe rehearsals and spend the week with you and if they have any sort of questions, you'll answer them. It'll help them to know what to expect after they graduate."

"Rehearsals are private for a reason, Kate, what if they leak it to the press or something?" Julian asks her.

"They won't. We have an agreement with UCLA and they've all signed contracts." Julian and Puck are still looking at her incredulously, so she decides to level with them. "Guys, that's not really optional. The papers have been already signed and they'll be here on Monday."

Puck tilts his head to the side. "So what, you just made the decision trusting that we would agree with it?"

"Or that I would make you agree with it." She says in a funny tone. "Choose your fights, Puckerman, you really want to turn this into a big deal?"

"I do if you think you can get in the middle of the artistic process in order to get money for your network!" he shouts, getting up and leaning closer to her table.

"Hey, hey!" Julian interferes, getting up too. "Why don't we calm down for a second? Huh?" he looks back and forth between the two of them, who are staring at each other with death eyes. "Puck, man, let's go back to the theater, we've got a lot of work to do."

Puck leaves the room without a word. Julian goes to the door but stops and looks over at Kate for a second. "I'll talk to him, but I also don't think it's a good idea."

She sighs and doesn't say anything. With one last look at her, he leaves the office too.

Julian gets to Puck when they're crossing the street back to the theater.

"Don't even try to convince me, man, she does not get to decide this on her own." Puck tells him immediately.

"I know and I agree with you." Julian says and some of Puck's aggressiveness fades a little. "Why don't we just think on it over the weekend?"

Puck shakes his head but doesn't say anything. They enter the theater and re-start rehearsals. It turns out that as the premiere approaches Puck can't really afford not to be on the theater so much, so even when he's not directing he stays and watches the whole thing. They're rehearsing a musical number with all the cast and Julian's playing with the band, as he decided he would be a part of the crew that will play upstage in the musical. Puck thinks that's a terrific idea, because it will give him the opportunity to be with the cast moments before the show and be the leader Puck knows he can be. He hasn't had the opportunity to be around for the musical numbers but he thinks they're pretty awesome. They're currently performing the number Puck thinks can get Julian a Tony for best original score, he's not even kidding.

The musical part is over and then it's his turn to rehearse the acts. He gets the script and gets upstage too, gathering Rachel and John to give them some pointers as to what he expects from them on the scene. It's one they haven't actually rehearsed intensely before, just superficially, and it's got an intense edge to it he thinks will be hard for both of them to master. So it takes some hours of rehearsals, a lot of talking and he's still not happy with the result. The theater is pretty much empty, with only him, Rachel and John in it.

"I don't see it, Noah." Rachel says, rolling her neck. "What is it that you want her to feel that I'm not feeling for her?"

He sighs and remains silent for a second. John and Rachel stare at him and then at each other, confused.

"Puck –"

"I'm thinking." He cuts John off without looking at him. Then he goes to where Rachel is and steps in front of her. "Okay, close your eyes."

She looks confused. "What?"

"Trust me, just do it."

She looks at him suspiciously and then glances at John, who shrugs. She does as she's told.

"Bojana's a girl in a highly masochist society who wants to be able to do everything a guy's able to. She's a feminist who wants to fight the system just as her guy friends and the man she likes, Luka, do. But her family, her conservative, pro-dictatorship family keeps her locked sexually, emotionally and politically. Can you relate at all to any of this?"

Rachel thinks for a second, eyes still closed. "On a rational level, yes. But I've never really felt any of this. My family has always been very honest with me in all these aspects."

"Do you think we live in a man's world?" Puck asks her.

"Absolutely."

"Did you ever feel angry because of it?"

"Yes, I have."

"When?"

"When I hear some smartass and highly offensive line in a bar, when I feel like a slut if I go out with a guy and have sex with him on the first date, when someone makes an unfortunate comment about my fathers - "

"Good." Puck cuts her off. "Open your eyes."

She does. He hasn't moved an inch and is still right in front of her. She watches his hazel eyes and notices that his beard has grown a little. He's really making that blue t-shit work and she's really enjoying the way he's looking at her right now. And not in the way she usually enjoys people watching her, amazed by her talent (although she's already seen him looking at her like that a few times, too), but he's giving her a look that makes her feel she's the only person in the room right now.

"I'm this guy." He tells her. "I've delivered some awful lines in my life, I've used women as objects and I do think they should make guys wait so they won't lose interest."

She watches him for a second. "That can't be true. You're inside Bojana's mind with perfection in your script; it's almost like you feel what she feels."

"I do. I'm perfectly capable of feeling what she feels. I can write about all kinds of minorities and actually get their message across to the audience." He puts his hands on his pant pockets. "I don't like being a pig. I try to fight against it every day. But I was raised in a certain way and then people around me turned out to be huge assholes, too. So I absorbed some of it. So here I am, in front of you, asking you to feel like Bojana when she thinks she will get her message across to her parents and her guy friends that won't let her join their resistance for being a girl."

She grimaces a little. "You're saying you think _I _can change your pig attitudes and that I need to feel that for Bojana, too?"

"You need to relate with her, somehow." He says. "I think you'll feel more connected with the character if you feel achieved in the same way she feels when she manages to convince Luka that she can be with the boys, too."

John smiles behind Puck. Rachel looks over him and then back to Puck, nodding. "Are you just this opened when you're stage directing?" She asks him with a small smile.

Puck thinks for a second. "And in a few other specific occasions." Rachel knows he means it. "Well, I think that's it for today. I want to sleep for days when I get home."

The two actors nod and go to the dressing rooms. Rachel stops before getting backstage and walks back to the stage.

"I'm throwing a party tomorrow night." She says and Puck turns around. "It's more like an open house, my stuff gets there tomorrow."

Puck blinks. "You're inviting me over?"

"Yes. You know, you and Julian. I don't really know how to invite my bosses, so… It would be nice if you could say something to Kate and him."

"Sure. Am I supposed to bring some sort of house warming gift or something?"

"No, not at all." She says, waving her hand. "It's okay, my home is not really here, anyway."

She smiles lightly at him before disappearing backstage.

* * *

><p>Okay, so maybe Matt should have though this through. The next day they're sweating their souls of, there are tons of boxes around, the place is a mess and Rachel's sort of acting crazy. She wants everything to be ready by ten, the time she said people should be arriving. Everyone's there helping, and Lisa, Alex, Simon and Phillip already brought their mattresses so they could spend the night. Rachel's stuff arrived that morning, so the living room and her bedroom are the only places where the guests can actually go. John and she go out after they arrange everything in her bedroom and in the living room to buy things for party later, leaving everyone lying in her wood floor in the living room, breathing heavily.<p>

They go to this liquor store around the corner and John gets a bottle of pretty much everything he sees in front of him while she worries about the food. They meet in the cash register and put all the stuff in John's car.

"You'll have to help me." She says, looking at herself in the rearview mirror while John fastens his seatbelt. "I have no idea what I'm wearing."

He raises an eyebrow, adjusting the mirror in his direction. "What do you want to be today?"

She sighs, thinking. "I don't know. The girl everybody likes. Attractive in a way that implies that I also have talent. Nice in a way that doesn't let people know that I hate LA."

He smiles, stopping in a red light. "You'll be just fine."

"Do you think Noah, Julian and Kate will come?"

"I don't know. But it's kind of weird to get wasted in front of your bosses. I don't know if I want them to come, actually."

"Well, I do. They've been working a lot, too, they deserve to loosen up a little."

"Right. Cause _you_'ll loosen yourself up a lot."

She looks over at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've thrown parties before, Rach. You pace around the room making sure people are okay and then go to the kitchen to refill the snacks then goes over the stereo to check on the playlist for the thousandth time." He turns to her. "You never have fun in your own parties."

"That is so not true! Sophomore year, you dragged me that Jewish fraternity party and I had a killer time!"

"Singing Madonna to a bunch of horny frat boys does not equal having fun, Rachel."

"Well, I liked it."

"I'm sure that Ephram boy liked it, too."

She punches him playfully. "Oh, shut up."

* * *

><p>Julian is sitting on the couch in his office playing something soft in his guitar when Puck enters it that afternoon. The whole cast has been dismissed. He looks up at his friend but doesn't stop playing. It's just when Puck manages to say something that he stops his fingers.<p>

"You've watched more musicals than me in your life, right?"

He puts the guitar aside. "I guess."

Puck fidgets a little, making Julian raise an eyebrow. "Can you name one that talks about home? About where we belong or something?" Puck says a little too fast.

"Thinking about adapting one into a movie?"

"No, that's not it." He hesitates. "I want to give Rachel a house warming gift."

Aw. He should've known this was coming. "Really? Isn't that a little old-fashioned?"

Puck shrugs. "Maybe, I don't care." He moves closer to Julian's desk, sitting on the guest seat. "You should see her eyes when she talks about New York. She made me watch Rent last week, her eyes were shining. I can't help but feel that she's not entirely happy that the biggest part of her life is being offered to her in the Sunset Strip and not in Broadway. I just want LA to feel like home to her, too."

Julian is a little taken aback by this. It's not that he doesn't like Berry, really; it's just that she isn't someone he'd pick for his personal life. Ever. And he knows Puck's developing something close to an obsession about her. He hasn't confronted Puck yet about the script thing and they've been putting up with it without actually talking about it. Julian's pretty sure Puck will most likely freak out if he points out that Rachel was who pulled him out of the black hole he was getting sucked into. He doesn't even know if _Puck_ is aware of it, actually. "I'll give it a thought and get back to you on that."

Puck sighs and gets up, seeming both relieved and nervous. "Thanks, man."

"Puck." He turns around. "You need her to like LA or you need her to like you?"

There's a split second where he recognizes something like dread in Puck's eyes. Then the door is opened and Kate comes in, seeming energetic.

"So guess what?" she says, sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch Julian's currently sitting with his guitar. "You two get to go to a party with me today."

"What?" Julian asks.

"I'm sorry, I've got plans." Puck says. "Actually we all have plans, Rachel invited us to her open house thing today at her place."

Julian grimaces. "Okay, I choose your party, Kate."

"It's not a choice, you're both coming with me. We're meeting a potential investor and I'd like him to talk to you both." She says.

"What about the rest of the cast?" Julian asks her. "Shouldn't you introduce them to this investor?"

"Yeah, well, about that… It's not actually a business meeting per say." She says, putting a strand of hair behind her ear. "His daughter is playing this Liszt piece tonight and I was invited. She's not your average eighteen year old, she's a piano prodigy, for starters."

Julian and Puck stare at her, still confused. She decides to be completely honest, then. She looks over at Puck. "I need you to charm her."

Puck blinks. "What?"

"This goofy yet maniacal way of writing and directing seems to make nerdy girls wet." She says with a funny face. "She mentioned you in passing and said she watched one of your short films. I thought we should see what happens there today and if we're lucky, we'll have two thousand dollars to fund presentations in South America next year."

"You're kidding, right?" Julian says, scoffing a little.

"I wish I were." Kate says. "The idea of having to put Puckerman in someone's good grace sickens me a little but, you know, the things we have to do for the arts."

"Isn't that, like, incredibly unethical?" Julian says, a little thrown out by this whole thing.

"Ethics is a very elastic concept." Kate says.

Julian blinks at her. "Why do you need me there for?"

"You'll do the trick with the dad." She says, getting up and walking to the door. "He's crazy about music and a big fan of your work, for that matter. I'll have a car picking you up here by eight, okay? Be ready by then, please. I'll meet you there, Peter'll drive me." With that, she disappears through the hall.

Julian gets ready in his office. He is wearing a black tuxedo with a butterfly tie, one of the many the Armani people had put in his wardrobe in his office. He goes over to Puck's office, who's already dressed too, and they wait for their car in front of the theater.

The theater they go to is not far but the traffic is terrible and it takes them a while to get there. Julian's impressed that there's no press in front of it and they enter the theater with no problems whatsoever. A small woman takes them to their table and they see Kate's not there yet. There's a latin couple sitting there that he imagines are the girl's parents. The man stands up immediately when he sees them.

"Julian Cortez." The man says, shaking his hand. "Antonio Martinez, a huge, huge fan. This is my wife, Gloria."

Julian smiles at both of them. "Nice to meet you two. This is Noah Puckerman." He watches as they shake hands and they all sit down.

"So, your family is from Argentina, right?" Gloria asks, filling their glasses with wine.

"Yes, my mother was born there." Julian says.

"We're from Venezuela." She says, nodding. "It's good to see Latinos like us ruling things in the U.S. They think we come here for cleaning and driving cabs but what do they know? It takes an average American decades to make what we make in a year!"

Julian doesn't say anything. He notices Puck is looking at him by the corner of his eyes but doesn't meet his friend's stare. The silence lasts a few more seconds and he feels like he should say something. He chooses something neutral, though. "I'm not Argentinean, though; I was born here in L.A."

"What about you, young boy?" Antonio says and turns to Puck. "Are involved in the play as well?"

"Yes, sir. I'm the writer." Puck says.

"Please call me Tony." The man says, waving a hand at him. "What does that mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"Being the writer. What does that involve?"

Puck blinks. "It involves writing the script." He answers slowly. He feels a punch on his leg and looks over at Julian, who's giving him a death glare. The couple doesn't seem to notice it, though. They keep staring at Puck as if waiting for him to elaborate. "It means that when the actors are on stage saying things, they're not making them up. I wrote their lines."

Gloria and Antonio make a face of understandment now. "Oh." The woman says and turns to Julian. "Same goes for the songs?"

They're thankfully distracted by a motion on their left side. Julian looks over and sees Kate approaching from the distance. She's wearing a dress he can't even start to describe and her hair is in long waves. She's wearing different make up than the one she usually wears every day. He doesn't even think about what he's doing and the next thing he knows, everyone on the table is watching him. He's on his feet in front of the table staring at her.

Kate and Peter approach them and seem a little confused. Peter immediately greets the couple and so does Kate, while Julian sits down again and refuses to look at Puck, who's staring at him with a smug expression.

"So I see you've met my boys here." Peter says, grabbing Puck's shoulders proudly.

"Yeah, they were explaining to us what they do in the play." Tony says.

"And where's our little genius?" Kate asks them, smiling and taking the glass of wine to her lips after.

"She's in the dressing room, we were waiting for you to go say hello to her there!" Gloria says, getting up. "I think she'll really appreciate the support before the concert."

"Sure, I'll go there with you!" Peter says happily, getting up and disappearing through the tables leaving Kate, Julian and Puck sitting there.

"Oh my god." Julian groaned, crashing his face on his hands. "Those were the creepiest three minutes of my life."

"What do you mean?" Kate asks him.

"Peter hugged Puck! Your potential investors don't even know what a writer does!" Julian says, his voice a little bit hysterical. "You were giving them your fake smile the whole time!"

"How do you know what my fake smile looks like?"

"I've been to a lot of meetings with you, Kate. I learned to know when you're being honest or when you're just trying to please the client."

Kate opens her mouth to say something but chooses not to.

"How long is this gonna take?" Puck asks, looking at his watch.

"Just let her see you, then leave." Julian says, taking a sip of his wine.

"No, no!" Kate says. "She's going to want to talk to him."

"Talk about what? We don't even know each other!"

"Well, suck it up, Puckerman." She says with a serious expression. "You do whatever you need to do to make her happy, you flirt with her, woo her, make her feel special, the entire package."

"How come now you're not offended that I'm about to be a crass, sexist, man whore?" he asks Kate, tilting his head to the side.

"Because now it'll be serving a legit purpose."

"The legit purpose being fooling a young girl in order to get her father to close a business deal with your boss?"

"Can you stop acting like you're not enjoying this?" Julian interrupts, looking at Puck. "You love it. You love having to be used by your looks. You love make women look at you."

Puck sighs, loosening his tie a little bit. True, he does like people looking at him, but today? Today he wants to leave this place ASAFP. He doesn't say anything, though, and it takes a few more excruciating minutes before Peter and the Martinez come back to the table and the lights go off.

Her presentation is okay, he supposes. But then he sees people around them cheering and applauding enthusiastically and starts to think that maybe this girl is really a prodigy or something. Julian seems impressed while he's clapping and that makes him really give the prodigy theory a thought. The girl curtsies on stage (which makes Puck roll his eyes) and heads backstage, seeming a little out of herself.

"God, she's awesome!" Kate exclaims.

"She said she wants you to go backstage and talk to her!" Gloria says. "I said you and the boys were here and she seemed pretty excited!"

"Sure, we'll give her a couple of minutes and then we'll surprise her." Kate says, getting up and gesturing Puck and Julian to follow her. She exchanges a meaningful look with Peter before heading to the bar, followed by the two of them.

"Okay, so here's the plan." She says, getting a conspirational air that makes Julian smile. "We'll go there and Puckerman will engage her in a conversation about whatever. Meanwhile you and I will approach her parents and we'll talk about a possible tour over South America next year. Their company sells oil to us and they want to fund an artistic project seeing that his daughter is really into it."

"Are you really getting money from these people?" Julian says, seeming pissed. "They're incredibly elitist, Kate, and honestly, they're complete morons, they don't care about theater!"

"They're good investors, Julian. They're safe money and honestly, I don't care about the fact that they don't give a rat's ass for theater. We do. The people in Brazil and Argentina and Peru who'll have the opportunity to watch the play do. Is it really important that the money come from art lovers?"

Julian sighs and doesn't say anything. Again. It makes him a little angry that she seems to be right about everything tonight.

Kate gestures for the two of them to follow her backstage. She gets some handshakes from people Julian imagines are the crew in this concert and they finally make it to her dressing room. The three of them stand in front of a door that reads "Anita Martinez" and has a little piano figure hanging from it. She knocks gently. "Anita? It's us, can we come in?"

"Sure." They hear the girl's voice inside. Kate opens the door and the tree of them freeze, looking inside.

Anita is in her bra and panties, her feet bare and her hair a disaster leaning against this little couch on the floor.

"Anita?" Kate says, kneeling beside the girl. "Are you okay? What happened?"

The latin girl smiles, closing her eyes for a second. "I was really nervous about playing tonight."

Kate makes a face and leans back a little. "What did you drink?" she asks her, glancing at the guys.

Anita points at the table near the door. "Whatever was in that bottle."

Puck grabs it and takes a look at the empty bottle.

"Vodka." He mutters.

"She drank the whole bottle?" Julian asks, shoving his hands into his hair.

"No, she'd be passed out if she had drunk the whole bottle." Kate says, getting up again and turning to Julian. "Give me your phone."

"What are you gonna do?" Julian asks, taking it from his inner pocket and giving it to her.

"I'll ask a car that can get us out of here." She murmurs, getting out of the room for a second.

Julian and Puck stare at one another once Kate has left. "So much for wooing her."

Puck smiles. "Remember when you played in the winter festival of '04 completely wasted? You couldn't even focus your eyes on the piano."

"I remember flashes of it." Julian says, smiling too.

"Best Springsteen cover I've ever seen."

They stand there, looking at Anita for a few more seconds until Kate comes back with a plan. "Puckerman, you'll take her to the car parked in the back of the theater while Julian and I will talk to her parents." She gets closer to him, looking him in the eye. "Whatever you do, don't let anyone distract you. You can't be seen, do not talk to a soul."

Puck nods. Kate leans down and dresses Anita again.

Julian grimaces. "Where are we taking her?"

"Somewhere she can sober up without her parents seeing her."

"Let's take her to Rachel's party." Puck suggests.

Kate glares at him. "Yeah, sober up at a party, why not?" she says sarcastically.

Puck rolls his eyes.

"I have an idea." Julian says. "Just drop Puck at Rachel's so he can stop fidgeting and then we can take her to her parents, it's a two hour drive, she'll probably sober up in the car."

Kate nods. "Okay."

* * *

><p>John takes a refill of vodka as Phillip scoops up behind him. "So, what do you think?"<p>

The party started an hour ago and what began as just a few people from the cast and crew had become a massive event with over seventy people, most of them people John has never seen before. There are still boxes around the house, but everything big was pretty much unpacked and already in place. Rachel had everyone working like dogs so it could be done in time.

He looks at the blonde guy, confused. "What do I think about what?"

Phillip scoffs. "The playlist! Come on, you gotta like it, I got Rachel to approve all the songs I put in the list in a conversation that took almost an hour and included pro/con lists to all of the song choices."

John laughs at Phillip, looking at Rachel on the other side of the living room as the party goes on. She's currently talking to Matt and Lisa about something that's getting the three of them really excited if the way they're gesticulating and laughing is any indication.

"Yeah, she can be like that sometimes." He says, taking a sip of the vodka in his cup.

"You kind of forget about all that crap when she starts to sing, though." Phillip says, looking over at her as well.

John smiles and nods.

"And she's got a real shot at becoming really known with Bojana. It's an amazing character." Phillip goes on. "And her audition was perfect."

John nods again, not understanding why Phillip is choosing to state the obvious when they haven't exchanged more than five words since he was chosen as his understudy.

"It's really bad that some of us didn't even have to audition to our parts, though."

John looks at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I'm just saying." Phillip shrugs. "You were pretty awesome at Grease but you only got to be Luka because you were friends with the musical director."

John lowers his cup the table behind him and turns to Phillip. He tries not to let his voice gets affected to the murdering feeling possessing him right now. "I'm sorry, you think you'd be a better Luka than I?"

Phillip doesn't look at him, eyeing Lisa as she walks away from Matt and Rachel and leaves the living room. "I think you should've auditioned like everyone else did."

Maybe it's the vodka talking, but John feels his hands clenching. "You know how I know you're the understudy? Because if you were a better Luka than me, you'd be him."

"Want to prove that statement?" Phillip asks, lowering his cup as well.

"What do you have in mind?"

Phillip turns to the piano in a corner of the living room. "Each one of us chooses a classic song and sing it right here to everyone. We'll let them decide who sings it better."

John smiles slowly. "You're on."

* * *

><p>Kate, Julian, Puck and Anita park in the Berry household driveway. Kate turns the engine off and turns to the backseat, where the latina is passed out leaning on Puck. Julian turns to them as well, seeming mildly amused by this whole thing.<p>

"You guys stay, I can take her home." Julian says, glancing at Kate beside him.

"No, I'll do it." Kate says immediately. "She's my responsibility. Besides, parties are not the type of thing to get my heart racing."

"A Rachel Berry party doesn't get my heart racing either; we can take her home together." Julian says, turning to her.

Kate smiles a little. "That's fine, I can take her. Plus you look like you need a drink."

"What? No, I'm okay, I can do this with you."

"Guys, as incredibly entertainfull as it is to watch you verbally copulating, I really need you to make a decision on this because I'm thirty seconds away from getting vomit on my shirt." Puck interrupts them, which makes both Julian and Kate roll their eyes at him.

"Julian, stay, that's an order." Kate says as she opens her door and leaves the car.

"That's a what?" he says, leaving the car as well. "You can't boss us around everywhere!"

"Oh no? Watch me." She opens the back door and shouts "Puckerman, get her on the front seat."

Puck does as he's told, leaving the car with the girl on his arms.

"Okay, let me reformulate: you can't boss _me_ around everywhere!" Julian shouts a little louder now.

They hear footsteps and turn around to see Matt approaching them on the yard. "What's going on?"

"Kate seems to think she owns everyone in here!" Julian shouts.

There's a tense silence as Kate and Julian stare at one another.

"What are you all wearing?" Matt asks, taking in Kate's red dress and having difficulty in looking somewhere else for a few seconds. "Who's the hot chick?" he adds, looking at the girl on Puck's arms.

"We were at this fancy dinner party and she drank a fuckton of vodka." Puck answers quickly, shifting the girl's weight in his arms. "Kate's being Kate on us and that's pissing Julian off because for the first time in his life he's not the only one calling the shots."

Another awkward silence follows. Puck feels the girl stir in his arms and she opens her eyes.

"What happened?" she asks him in a low voice.

"It's okay, we're ready to take you home." Kate says, approaching Puck. The girl's feet land on the floor and she stares at Kate.

"Thank you." She whispers.

Kate smiles at the girl. "It's no prob –"

But suddenly the girl's lips are on Kate's, who raises her arms in surprise. The girl lingers there a few seconds before pulling away slowly, eyes still closed.

"Holy shit." Matt exclaims after a second.

Kate smiles tightly. "Get in the car, will you? I'll drive you home." The girl eagerly obliges, getting in the passenger's seat.

Kate enters the car and turns it on, leaving three stunned men standing on Rachel's yard. "Try not to get in any covers of magazines for whatever stupid things you'll do in this party, okay?"

She drives away slowly. "That means you, Puckerman!" she yells from her window and disappears with the car.

Matt, Julian and Puck look at one another.

"I can't believe I came to this dinner party for nothing." Puck mumbles, looking at his watch. It was 2:23am. Maybe Rachel was already too tired. Maybe everyone was already drunk and he wouldn't even have a chance to spend time with her. Maybe she was making out with some dude who had the decency of showing up on time.

"Guys." Julian says with a twitch of his eyebrow. "Do you hear that?"

The three men remain in silence for a few seconds. Julian is right. There's a sound of something moving in the bushes that separate Rachel's yard from the neighbor's. Matt picks up his phone from his pocket to use it as a flashlight and walks closer, followed by the others. The flashlight goes through the ground and for a while there's nothing different. But then Matt stops in his tracks, causing Puck and Julian to look at what it's illuminating.

Lisa is lying on the ground, unconscious, with her skirt ridding up and her breasts exposed.

**A/N[2].: Chapter five has already been written and it starts immediately at the end of chapter four. I know I said things would get fun and lighter in this chapter but what can I say? I'm a drama queen. Plus the issues discussed in this two chapters arc are important.**


	5. Chapter 4 - Part II

**Chapter 4 – Part II**

Puck stands there for what feels like hours. None of them had moved and inch. He tries to search his mind desperately, to figure out what the next step is, but his mind is blank. He feels his arm block Julian as his friend tries to run to Lisa and he suddenly remembers. "You can't wake her." His voice seems like it belongs to someone else.

Julian looks back at him. He nods, suddenly remembering too.

"He's still around." Matt says. Julian and Puck look at him. "Whoever did this to her is still around. We just heard him a few seconds ago." He looks around, a gleam in his eyes. "I'll find him."

Puck nods and Matt runs across the neighbor's yard, following the bush's trail and getting out of sight.

"We need to - We have to find a –" Julian throws up on the ground. Puck watches him, helplessly. He closes his eyes, trying to get his breathing under control. It's rare that he gets to be the one leading them along, but it doesn't look like Julian will be able to do it this time.

So he picks up his phone from his pocket and dials. It rings one, two, three times. He tries to get his voice to a normal register.

"Noah?" Rachel says, happily, on the other side of the line. "Where are you, we're all waiting for you!"

"Rachel, listen to me." He cuts her. "I'll give you a few instructions and I need you to follow them. I need you to come to the front of your house immediately. Do not bring anyone else with you. Do you understand me?"

"Noah, you're scaring me."

"Just do it, okay? Hang up the phone and come down here."

Puck can hear her breathing on the other side of the line. She hangs up, much to his relief, and he stares at Julian, kneeled right in front of him.

"Are you okay?" he asks him, glancing at Lisa and then around.

Julian steps up again, cleaning his mouth in his expensive Armani suit's sleeve. "Nothing about this is okay." he answers, staring right ahead at his friend.

Julian gets up and walks to the house, looking miserable.

Puck hears footsteps and looks around frantically. He's relieved to see that it's Rachel crossing paths with Julian and walking towards him with a terrified look on her face. "What happened?" she asks him, probably scared by the look on Julian's face. He stops in front of her, blocking the sight of Lisa and grabs Rachel's shoulders.

"I need you not to freak out when you see this." He tells her, looking straight into her eyes. "I need you to hold it together, okay? Because Julian's freaking out and Matt's probably running for his life right now chasing the guy who did this and –" He takes a deep breath. "I need you to know what to do."

She stares at him in horror. He steps aside and looks over at Lisa. She's still looking at him and then slowly to the place where his eyes have landed. She stays motionless for a few seconds before walking towards Lisa desperately.

Rachel kneels beside her and lowers her ears to her nose, noticing she's still breathing. She slowly straightens her skirt and covers her breasts with her blouse again. Then she pokes her gently, getting the hair out of her face. "Lisa" she whispers. "Lisa, wake up."

She does this for a few more seconds and Lisa stirs, opening her eyes slowly. She looks at Rachel, seeming confused to see her there, then to the ground and around. After the few seconds it takes for her to get familiar with her surroundings, she starts shaking her head nervously.

"Hey, it's okay." Rachel whispers. "It's fine, it's over. I'm here for you."

Lisa starts sobbing uncontrollably. Rachel hugs her tightly, whispering soothing words in her ear as she looks over to Puck, who is on the phone.

He hangs up and looks over at Rachel. "Police said we need to go inside and try to act normal up so nobody leaves until they come here. They're all suspects and witnesses."

She nods. "And the next step?"

Puck looks over at both women at the ground. "Convince her to report the crime."

* * *

><p>Kate's having a hard time trying to focuse on the road ahead of her as she drives to Anita's house in Big Sur as the girl sleep in the passenger's seat beside her. She feels exhausted and very worried about the whole situation with the Martinez. She knows Peter won't forgive her if she messes this deal up.<p>

"I'm sorry I kissed you." The girl's voice quietly echoes through the silent car.

Kate looks over at Anita and smiles. "It's okay."

"I guess I just really admire you and what you do." The latina goes on, pulling the cover up. "Really. The way you run that troupe is remarkable."

Kate laughs a little, thinking that Julian might not share that opinion.

"Plus dad yaps about you all the time. I feel like I've know you from the crib."

Kate nods. The Martinez and the Rudolphs are family friends. It figures Peter would talk about her work with them. They sit in silence for a while, watching the dark road.

"Can I ask you a question?" Kate says. The other one nods. "Why did you drink your weight in vodka tonight?"

Anita sighs. "Guess I was nervous. And pressed. It was a huge party and my parents had been planning it for months. They wanted to show me around to all their friends and partners."

Kate doesn't say anything. The other girl takes a breath. "Do you know I've been playing it since I was six? The piano. They had it planned for me since before I was born. How cruel is that?"

She remains silent. She doesn't really want to get into this, not when there's a huge deal to be closed and a big part of it depends on Anita pleasing her parents and being a piano prodigy.

"You don't really care, do you?" The latina says, turning to look at her window. "All you want is for me to like you and Peter and show my parents how great you two are with me."

"That's not true." Kate says.

"Isn't it?" the other girl says, turning to her again. "You fake the entire time you're with us. You have this creepy smile when you're in these parties and I just know you don't want to be there. It's like your whole body is screaming to leave but your eyes are silent."

Kate looks at her for a second before turning her eyes to the road again. She's mildly impressed with the young girl's perception.

"Tell me something true. Stop faking it for a second." Anita says in a defiant voice.

"You're out of your mind."

"Am I? Because I heard uncle Peter telling dad about your condition last month." Anita raises her right leg to the car seat and leans on her knee.

Kate grips the wheel with force and presses the break. The car stops abruptly in the middle of the road.

"Are you crazy? We're in the middle of the freaking road!" Anita shouts, looking behind them over her window.

"You want sincerity?" Kate says, shutting the engine off and turning to Anita. "I don't think you should quit the piano. I don't think you should quit it because you're a daddy's little girl. And you try to act all Californian and plural and then kisses me to prove it, but you wouldn't handle two days of producing. You'd be crying to go home after two hours of mild pressure. So stick to what you're good at because you've been practicing it for many years now. There's no practicing to do what I do. Either you're good at it or you're not."

Anita swallows, eyes rounded. They stare at each other for a few more seconds. A car passes over them, honking. Kate watches it as it disappears on the road. Then she turns to Anita again.

"So how do you like the real Kate?"

Neither of them say anything more until they reach the Martinez mansion.

* * *

><p>"Lisa." Rachel whispers, leaning back from where she was hugging her. "Let's get you inside, okay? You're freezing, let's go inside, okay?"<p>

Lisa shakes her head frenetically.

"Look, I know it's scary. I know it is." She moves the bangs out of Lisa's face. "But I'll be with you the whole time, do you hear me? The whole time. And all our friends are in there and they won't let anybody get near you, do you understand me? Anyone."

Rachel gets up and tries to take Lisa with her. She offers no resistance. Puck helps her from the other side and they walk slowly into the house. They enter it and the first and second thing Rachel notices is that there's still music and everyone is gathered in the living room like nothing ever happened. The third thing she notices is that Lisa is sobbing again and screaming desperately. Lisa hugs her in a desperate manner and Puck helps them climbing up the stairs to her room. They enter and Lisa's still crying, screaming and pointing at the door.

He locks it immediately. "Hey, it's okay, it's locked. No one can get in here, you see?"

The crying subsides slowly. Rachel's still hugging her. She looks up at Puck and sees something change in his eyes.

"I'll go downstairs for a second, you lock this room and soon as I leave and don't open it without knowing who it is, okay?" he says in a low voice.

She nods. "What's going on?"

He locks eyes with her. "She saw the rapist. That's why she freaked out when we entered the house. He's downstairs in the living room and she saw him."

Rachel feels a wave of panic going through her. She watches him leave the room and it takes her a few seconds to get out of her frozen state to get up and lock the door.

John's got his hands on his face and is staring at the refrigerator as Puck and Phillip stand in front of the kitchen door. The party's still going on in the living room and yard. They decided it was better to let everyone think nothing was happening until the police came. Turns out it's pretty easy to make drunken people think that a screaming woman is no big deal and let them get back to the party.

"Puck, listen to me. We can't confront him, whoever he is. He's probably trying to blend in among everyone, to act surprised like everyone and the only advantage that we've got is that he doesn't know that we know he's here." John says in a nervous voice.

"And the fact that Lisa recognized him." Puck says, glaring at him.

"Yeah, but we didn't." Phillip says. "And I think it's for the best. What do you think we would've done if we had? Probably lock him up in the bathroom after beating the crap out of him."

"We can't know for sure if she's going to report him." Julian mumbles from the corner of the kitchen he's currently leaning on.

Puck, John and Phillip look at him. It's the first thing Julian's said since he'd entered the house.

They hear a tapping in the kitchen door. They turn around and sees Matt through the glass, all sweaty and breathing heavily. He opens the door and then locks it immediately.

"I ran ten blocks. Son of a bitch vanished." He says, opening the refrigerator to get the bottle of water and doesn't even bothering to find a glass.

"He's here." Phillip says, getting closer to Matt. "Right in the living room. Police is coming. We've got him."

"What? He's here? Who is he?" Matt asks, heading to the living room.

Puck runs to him and blocks his way. "Take it easy, we don't know who he is, we just know that he's in the living room because Lisa looked at him and screamed when Rachel got her in the house."

"Did she point at him?"

"No, she just looked and backed away desperately towards Rachel." John says.

"And he didn't run away?" Matt asks, confused.

John looks over at Puck. "No, he didn't, that's weird."

"Who knows what the freak thinks?" Phillip says. "If he's a psychopath he knows his chances of escaping are much greater if he doesn't act guilty."

Matt fists his hands. "I wanna kill him. I want to kill with my bare hands."

"I know, and I do too." Puck says in a fierce tone. "But this is not about us. It's not about our macho pride that wants to defend the honor of a lady in despair. It's about Lisa and what he did to her and how she'll never fully recover from this. You don't take this in your bare hands, Matt. You don't make this about yourself."

Matt swallows and nods. Puck trades a quick look with Julian, who seems to be about to pass out anytime soon now.

"We need a distraction." John says, and that makes everyone look at him. "Something that'll keep him entertained. If we're all here all night people will get suspicious." He raises his eyes to Phillip, who nods and walks over to the living room.

"Matt, we need you on the piano." John says on his way out. The black man nods, a little confused, and follows him out of the kitchen, leaving Julian and Puck there.

"We should call Kate." Puck says. "She'll know what to do about the legal stuff, the press. I hate to say it, but we need her here."

Julian nods and hands his friend his phone. Puck finds her number and presses call. It rings two times.

"What's wrong?" Kate says.

Puck wrinkles his forehead, a little annoyed. He doesn't have time to out voice that, though. And, well, truth be told, something _is _wrong. Sickeningly so. "It's Puck. Lisa was raped. We're trying to create a reasonable distraction so the rapist doesn't leave the house, she recognized him."

She doesn't say anything for a few seconds. "I'm on my way." She says before hanging up.

* * *

><p>Kate approaches the house and on the yard. Leaving the car, she walks to the front door. She hears music inside. She debates internally whether she should ring the bell or just simply enter and decides for the later, walking in the house.<p>

She doesn't really know what she expected to find but it surely wasn't what she's seeing. There's a little crowd around what seems to be a piano being played by Matt while John's singing his first solo from the musical. Her first instinct is to ask him what the hell he's doing showing private intellectual property to random people when the musical hasn't had its premiere yet. But then she gains a little perspective and looks over to find someone who can give her some kind of hint about what's happening. She gets a few looks that she imagines are because she's still wearing the gala dress she went to the dinner party. It all seems like it happened a million hours ago. She walks over and finds a door. She opens it and enters the kitchen. She's a lot relieved when she sees Julian and Puck standing there.

"She's upstairs with Rachel, they're locked in her room." Puck says, uncrossing his arms and walking closer to the counter. "Alex's in the hall upstairs on guard. We're waiting for the police."

She nods and looks over at Julian, who's leaning on the corner of the kitchen and is still hasn't looked at her.

"So there's really nothing more we can do but wait?" she asks.

Puck shakes his head.

"What's with the singing out there? That's your reasonable distraction?" she asks, confused.

Puck shrugs. "It's working."

A few more seconds go by. Kate feels increasingly bothered by the lack of action she's taking standing there, waiting and hoping for the best. Hoping that the rapist doesn't just decide to leave. Hoping that the police will get there and have the sensitivity to deal with the case.

"How's the guy? The rapist?"

"Physically?" Puck asks.

"No, emotionally, of course." Kate rolls her eyes at him.

Puck sighs. "I don't know, we don't know who he is. You really think we'd all be sitting around if we knew who he was?"

"It'd be the rational thing to do." She states.

"It'd be the psychopathic thing to do." Puck states back.

More seconds of silence. Her heart is thumping loudly in her ears.

"Where did it happen?"

Puck swallows. "In the yard. Seconds before you left with the piano prodigy."

Her eyes round. "Oh my God." She glances at the kitchen window at the yard. "She probably heard us all. It must've been…" she trails, hopelessly.

She sees a motion on her right and sees that Julian is leaving the kitchen, breathing hard. She fights the urge to follow him and turns to Puck questionably instead.

"Is he okay?"

Puck takes a deep breath. "No."

Kate keeps looking at him, waiting for him to say more. He doesn't, though. She tries a different approach.

"Why is he not fighting me over control of the situation anymore?"

He looks at her like she's crazy. "Because he doesn't have the control of anything at this point. He wouldn't even be here if he couldn't. He's here because Lisa is one of our own and he can't just leave."

She looks over to the spot he previously occupied. Then she looks back at Puck and she knows he can see she's curious and genuinely concerned about him.

"His mother was raped when he was twelve." Puck says in a low voice. "He was in the house that day and he kind of blames himself for that. He thinks he should've done something. It doesn't matter how many people tell him that he was just a boy back then and there's nothing he could've done, he just won't accept it."

Kate blinks, the words slowly sinking in her.

"He's not gonna fight you over anything today." Puck mumbles.

* * *

><p>Rachel's facing the window on her room when she sees the police car parking in her yard. She sees a few people confused about their presence in the party, but she also see the cops leading everyone inside. She thinks she hears the music stop but she also thinks it was in her head in the first place because it didn't make a lot of sense for her to be listening to John sing his solo from the musical. She turns around and sees Lisa still on her bed, leaning her head on her knees.<p>

"Police is here." She whispers to Lisa. The dancer doesn't seem to have heard her. She gets closer to Lisa on the bed and leans down, getting her eyes to the same level as Lisa's. "Police is here."

Lisa nods. A knock on the door alarms both of them.

"It's okay, it's them." Rachel says, going over to the door. Then she negates her statement by remembering Puck's advice from earlier and asking, "Who's this?"

"Los Angeles Police Department, madam." She hears a male voice on the other side and then Noah's "Rachel, it's okay, open up.".

She does. Two male officers enter the room and so do Noah and Kate.

"Madam? I'm officer Smith and this is officer Johnson." The policeman says, pointing at him and his partner. "We're here to investigate a rape."

"Can you please tell us what happened?" the other cop says, opening a notebook.

Lisa swallows hard, seeming scared out of her mind. Rachel steps in.

"A little sensitivity would be nice." She says. "She's obviously nervous and clearly doesn't want to talk about it again."

The taller policeman raises his eyebrows. "We're trying to do our job here, sweetheart."

"My name's Rachel." She says in a slightly louder tone.

"Was she wearing that today?" the other officer asks, taking notes.

Rachel, Noah and Kate turn to him. "Is that relevant?" Kate asks, crossing her arms in front of her.

"We'd like to know if she put herself in any kind of dangerous situation." He answers. "Did you drink tonight, madam?"

Noah gets closer to both officers now in a threatening way. "Are you kidding me? It doesn't matter!" he says in the loudest tone someone has used until now. "She's freaking out and scared out of her mind to have you asking her dumb questions! She was raped, for crying out loud! Rape's caused by misogyny, not by the way she was dressed or how much she drank!"

"Sir, I'm going to ask you to leave the room." The taller cop says.

"What? I'm not leaving this room!"

"Step away right now or I'll have arrested."

Kate steps closer to him. "Puck, walk away."

"Are you listening to these jerks?"

"I am and I've got this." She tells him. "The last thing we need is for you to spend the night in jail. Go be with Julian."

Noah stares at her for a few more seconds. Then he goes over at Rachel and looks down at her.

"Don't let them discredit her." He says in a low, almost pleading voice.

She shakes her head. "I won't. None of us will." She feels close to tears right now.

He glances at Lisa briefly before heading to the door and leaving the room.

Kate takes a breath and stares right ahead at both men. "We want different officers. We want someone specialized in sexual assault crimes."

"Madam…"

"No, no!" she shouts, feeling Puck's anger rise out of her, too. "You call your station and you send someone who believes a rape took place here before asking all the questions. I know the best lawyers in the city and I swear I'll make your lives a living hell if you don't do that right this second!"

Both cops look at her seeming terrified now. The taller one reluctantly takes his radio and walks outside the room, speaking to someone about sending someone to the house and giving them the address. The other cop follows him out the room and so does Kate.

Rachel looks over at Lisa, who still seems terrified.

"Hey" she whispers, sitting on the bed beside her. "Lisa."

The dancer looks at her. "Will this feeling ever go away?" she whispers, eyes dry.

Rachel nods. She knows it will. She spent her whole childhood being bullied at school. She spent her teenage days thinking she wasn't pretty or sexy enough. She got over it all. She had a mother who showed up in her life only to disappear shortly after, leaving her heartbroken. She had a boyfriend who has her first love and broke up with her when she went to New York after her graduation, another heartbreak. It was eight years later and she got over all that. She has wonderful fathers and has had great relationships. She knows maybe her issues are not as big as being raped at a party. But maybe our problems are big problems for us. Some days she finds it hard to breath, sometimes it all gets to her. And she survives it. She always does. She knows Lisa will, too.

"Yes. When you look back at this day in the future, somehow, impossibly, it won't feel this way. It won't hurt this much."

Lisa looks at Rachel.

"But you'll need to tell them what happened." Rachel says. "Then the healing will start. Do you think you can do that?"

Lisa starts breathing heavily and nods. Rachel takes her hand in hers, holding it tightly.

She doesn't know how long they sit there waiting until they hear a soft knock on the other side. Lisa looks up at Rachel, who gives her a reassuringly look before turning and opening it. She sees Kate and a woman on the hall, dressed a lot like Kate when she's working. It's a little odd to see Kate in a gala dress while this other black woman is dressed just like she dresses every day.

"Hi," the woman says, "I'm Jane Atwood, I'll be the promoter in this case. I'm here to listen to her."

Rachel stares at the woman. "Tell me you'll be different from those pigs who took care of the case first."

"I will. I specialize in violence against women."

Rachel nods at the woman and lets both of them in. She grabs a chair so Lisa can sit facing Lisa and then walks towards the door with Kate, who holds the doorknob and opens it. "Let me know when you're done."

"You can both stay." Lisa says, her voice raw and low. "Please, stay." She looks at Kate and then back at Rachel. "You two were… you were incredible today. I don't know if I can do this without you."

Rachel suppresses a sniff and smiles at her. Kate closes the door and leans against it, while Rachel goes to sit beside Lisa on the edge of the bed.

"I'll record this so you won't have to describe everything again, okay?" Jane says, holding a recorder. "This is Elisabeth Cooper, case 2376. Please tell me everything about the events of last night."

Lisa takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. "Rachel threw a party. There were a lot of people, there was music and alcohol and everything a party usually has. And then this guy approached me on the dance floor. He said I was beautiful and he asked me if I wanted a drink. I refused because I was trying to sober up. Then he asked if I wanted to get some fresh air and suggested that we went outside. We did and we started making out on the front porch. We were kissing and then he started putting his hands under my skirt. I let him at first. Then he started pulling my underwear down and that's when I wanted to stop. We were outside, leaning at a wall on the porch and didn't want to have sex with him. I told him to stop and then I tried to push him away. He was twice my size so it didn't work. He just kept kissing me and my neck and my breasts and then he was dragging me to that bush. I couldn't bring myself to scream. I just… I couldn't. Screaming would make it real. Screaming would turn me into another statistic on someone's paper. So I just tried to convince myself that it wasn't happening, that I was okay with all that, that I wanted all that. That I wasn't being raped. That he wasn't pushing into me and hurting me and that I wasn't feeling disgusted with all that. I could hear Kate and Julian and Puck and Matt speaking on the other side of the bush. They were just right there, a few feet from me and I just let my mind think that it was a normal day of rehearsals and they were just arguing about the course of a scene. I was somewhere else the whole time. I was in the theater. I wasn't being raped."

Rachel runs a hand in her eyes and her hands get soaked with tears. She looks up at Kate, who's still leaning on the door and has tears in her eyes as well.

Jane stops recording.

"Thanks for that, Lisa." She says.

Kate feels the strong urge to leave the room. It's unbearable to be there. She excuses herself halfheartedly and exits the room. She leans on the wall outside of it, breathing hard and drying her eyes. She gets herself under control after a few minutes and descends the stairs, finding the guys on the living room, not talking. They acknowledge her expectantly and she nods, hoping to convey that everything went okay upstairs. She tries to locate Julian without success among them. Puck senses that and points with his head to the kitchen.

She enters it silently and sees him sitting in front of the counter, blinking slowly and staring at the bottle of beer in front of him. The sun is just rising now, slowly illuminating the kitchen. She doesn't want to alarm him, so she goes over to the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of water and takes a big gulp of it before leaning on the wall in front of the counter. He raises his eyes to her.

"I'm going to say a bunch of stuff that may or not make sense to you about your mother." She says, not mentioning how she knows any of this. He must've guessed or not care, because he doesn't ask her or even say anything, just keeps looking at her.

"We're not raised to scream." She says in a simple voice. She's not trying to prove a point. She's trying to say something that'll get to him, that'll make him listen, that won't just ricochet like everything everyone else has been saying to him. "We're raised to be gentle and classy and pleasant. To be warm and to make everyone around us feel comfortable. A woman who speaks up is seen as crazy or hysterical. Rape doesn't happen in this little corner of the world. Everything happens in a continuum. A woman who's taught that will hardly scream at the top of her lungs if she feels threatened. Try to understand Lisa and your mom. They didn't scream because they couldn't."

He closes his eyes. "I was in the next room. When it happened. I was right in the next room and that jerk left and messed my hair on his way out. And then I heard my mom crying."

Kate watches him, feeling her heart break a little. The sun is reaching his face now, making his eyes browner than ever.

"I hate her a little for that. She's been a part of feminist organizations for years, she gives speeches and workshops all over the country, she fights it every day. And I'm incredibly proud of her. But I hate a little for not fighting that time."

She swallows and goes over to the counter, sitting in front of him. They look at each other for a few seconds and Julian looks down eventually, leaning his head on the counter.

* * *

><p>John's sitting on the porch swing outside with a cup of coffee in his hands. He left the kitchen a few minutes ago, having found a very quiet Julian in there. The sun's rising up above the hill he sees from Rachel's room as well. It's unusual cold for the end of July.<p>

The door opens to his right and Phillip comes out with his hands on his pockets. He doesn't acknowledge John and just keeps staring ahead at the rising sun. A few seconds go by.

"All that I-should-be-Luka thing seems pointless now, doesn't it?" he says and Phillip jumps a little before looking back at him.

He smiles a little, staring down at his mug.

"We put our competition to a good use, though." Phillip says, walking back and sitting next to him on the swing.

They sit there for a while, letting the cool breeze pass over them. John suddenly feels exhausted.

"Sometimes I need a reminder." He mumbles. Phillip looks over at him. "I've been doing this my whole life, the auditions, the preparation, the competition. It's exhausting. Sometimes I need a reminder for why I do all that. Art is sick. Art's a muffled ego. It's crazy to think someone will want to see your feelings all over the place in the form of a play or a song or a poem."

"It's also beautiful." Phillip says. "One verse or one line or one lyric can express what a whole paper can't. Art saved my life. And it does. Every day."

John thinks about what art has given him. True, he thinks it's saved his life as well when things at school got unbearable. He'd sing to get through the day. And then he'd sing again at Rachel's. He didn't think he could walk away from that anymore. It was running on his veins already. Art defined him. Being on the theater every day, singing and dancing and just _performing _was who he is. It was good to be reminded of that.

"But if you wanna quit, that'd be okay, too. You know, your understudy is really eager to get to play Luka alone." Phillip smiles wickedly.

John laughs, shaking his head. "Nice try."

* * *

><p>Rachel's sitting on the couch in the living room hours later, staring at the TV screen but not really watching it. She doesn't know how long she's been there. The house is quiet now that everybody's left, except the people who live there and Puck, Kate and Julian. Officer Jerk and Officer Asshole managed to take Lisa's rapist to the police station as soon as they left her room earlier, John had told her. The guy didn't offer a lot of resistance and they found out later he was a friend of a friend of a friend of someone from prop room. Lisa was also taken to the station and had all kinds of tests done. Rachel was there for it all and they finally got home a few hours ago.<p>

It's already night time again. She feels exhausted but has a hard time to close her eyes. She senses a motion on her side and turns to see Noah entering the room. She follows him with her eyes until he sits down on the couch too.

"How is she doing?" he asks, bringing one leg to rest on the couch.

Rachel takes a deep breath, feeling even more exhausted now. "Traumatized for life, that I can guarantee you. John's upstairs with her, he's trying to make her get some sleep."

He nods. Rachel gives up on her act and turns off the television, putting the remote on the coffee table and leaning her head on the couch. She notices he's watching her from the corner of her eyes.

"You were great today." He says. "I'm sorry that I threw the weight of dealing with the mess that she was on your shoulders, but… I'm really glad I did it. She was really fucking lucky to have you around today."

She tries to smile at that. She does like compliments, but right now it feels wrong to accept this one. Of course she was there for Lisa, how could she not be? How could she not empathize and hold her hand and cry her eyes out during her deposition? She doesn't feel as nearly pleased as she gets when someone compliments her for her talent.

"How are you?" he asks her and that makes her look at him. She feels like it's a genuine question, this one. Like he's really interested in knowing how she's feeling and how this day was for her. She doesn't get asked that a lot, John being an exception. She doesn't feel like other people actually care when they ask things like that. But Noah is sitting right next to her and he's watching her with those eyes that have to mean that he cares. That make her feel heard, seen. Like he thinks everything she has to say is important.

She lowers her eyes to the coffee table in front of them. "The deposition was the worst part." She whispers, her voice getting caught at the end. "It was like she was talking about someone else entirely. She had this way of talking about what happened with this cold detachment, like it was this especially chocking episode of her favorite TV show or a creepy part of a novel or -" she stops, closing her eyes. "It's like it wouldn't her so much if it was someone else's pain. If it were me, I'd be crying my eyes out; I wouldn't be able to say anything that made any kind of sense."

He must feel how distressed she is because he reaches for her hand on the couch, holding it with his right one and running his thumb lightly over her wrist. It shouldn't feel as good as it does and it's a innocent gesture, she knows, but the feeling of his thumb on her skin sends her spine a feeling she can't quite put her finger on. It's good, though. Definitely the best she's felt in a while and certainly better than this whole day.

She stares at their hands for a while. Then she remembers something and she raises her eyes to his. "Why did you lie to me yesterday in rehearsal?"

He tilts his head to the side, confused.

"You said you were a misogynist." She says, crinkling her eyebrows. "You said you were a pig, you told me you were one of the guys from the musical, a guy like Bojana's father or close… You're nothing like that. What you did today, the things you said, the opinions you expressed… Noah, you're a feminist."

He smiles at her and looks down with an expression that would suggest he got caught. "It's pretty hard not to be when your best friend's mother is Rosa Cortez." She's still glaring at him waiting for some kind of explanation. "I was trying to get you in the character." He adds, shrugging.

Rachel turns her body towards his on the couch, facing him. "Don't do that by lying about who you are. I don't think I need any more training than the one I've had today. Masochism is everywhere. I have Bojana with me now; I feel what she's trying to fight against in the play."

Noah nods at her and smiles a little. He's still holding her hand and looking at her in a way that gets her comfortable enough to hear herself saying, "You know, I watch movies and I don't care who is the protagonist, I feel what that guy is feeling. You know, if it's Tom Cruise leaping over a building I, I want to make it, you know? And I'm going to, yes, I made it." She smiles a little when he laughs. "And I've grown up, well, partly because there weren't great girls' literature. Nancy Drew maybe. But there weren't things. So there was Huck Finn and Spin and Marty. The boys' characters were interesting and you lived through them when you're watching it. You know, you're not aware of it but you're following the action of the film through the body of the protagonist, you feel what he feels when he jumps, when he leaps, when he wins, when he loses." She looks up at him again. "And I think I just took it for granted that, you know, we can all do that. But it became obvious to me that men don't live through the female characters."

Noah stares at her and nods. She knows he gets it. "You wrote a female character that makes everyone want to live through her." Rachel says. "Bojana is strong, she's determinate, she's beautiful and she changes the world around her in every way she can. She's the part of my life. You live through Bojana. And you're capable of e mpathizing with her. Don't ever be ashamed of that. This is who you are. And I like who you are, Noah Puckerman."

He must smile like an idiot to her if the way she smiles back at him, laughing a little, is any indication.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

It turns out she _really, really _likes who he is. This thought occurs to Rachel the next day when Noah steps by at the house to see how Lisa is doing. And again a week later when he writes a public letter to the press about the inadequacy of common police stations to cases of violence against women. And that's what's currently crossing her mind as she watches him watch rehearsal from where she stands backstage, just peeking outside at the audience as they're having lunch break.

"Want a napkin?" John asks behind her and she jumps a little, turning around to look at his smug expression.

She starts to shake her head, ready to deny all of this his words are implying but, really, what's the point? He's been doing this thing where he reads her like a book for a while now.

"It's innocent. It's nothing." She mumbles.

He keeps staring at her and raises his eyebrows.

"He's my boss, it's not like I can like him or anything."

John shrugs. "You can like him. Acting on it makes things a little more complicated, though."

Rachel looks back at Noah in the audience. John's right, she knows. There are a million reasons why this is a bad idea. He's an incorrigible flirt, with her or any other attractive woman he meets, she's learned in these few months of working with him. She doesn't necessarily want to be in an exclusive relationship, but she also knows relationships, exclusive or not, not always last, and it would be really unpleasant to work every day with someone who used to see you naked.

It's just that all these practical reasons seem stupid when she thinks about the good things about him. He's obviously very attractive, with the hazel eyes and the body that he carries beneath the button down and Henley shirts he uses in the theater. He has lovely arms, too, and she has spent quite some time watching them as he types. His dorky reading glasses give her the urge to kiss his stupidly handsome face and that's all just his looks. If she thinks about his convictions she'll see they share many opinions. He's a humanist and a feminist, he shares with her a slight aversion to the Academy, they both support the gay cause.

But if she thinks about the parts they're not alike, then she comes up with some stuff, too. He's not religiously Jewish like her. He's actually very, very skeptical about religion and that makes her a little uncomfortable sometimes. She's not a religious fanatic or anything close to that, but some of his comments about the improbability of a God really existing the way Christian and Jewish religions say He does bug her a little. She knows there are lots of inconsistencies in the story she buys, that believing it is just some way to lie to yourself, but, honestly, who doesn't? So she usually bites her tongue when he makes some joke about it and focuses on the musical, her character and the story she's telling the audience (another lie as well).

And there's the meat thing. The red, bleeding meat thing that's coming out of the giant burger he's currently eating with Matt. She tries not to grimace as he takes a monstrous bite and chews it. She considers going there and telling them that they're not supposed to be eating in the theater but decides against it as he swallows. Okay, she's never felt less attracted to him than she is right now. Maybe that's what she should think about every time he crosses her mind.

"Are we doing this or what?" she hears Julian's voice from somewhere in the theater.

John turns to go stand where's he's supposed to be for the number they'll rehearse, but not before turning to her and giving her a serious look.

"Don't go there, Rach. It's got bad idea written all over it."

She sighs and watches him go. Damn him for being the reasonable voice in her head for, like, ever.

* * *

><p>Two hours into rehearsal and Kate shows up in the theater wearing her pissed of face, followed close by the cast and crew's assistant, Helen. They all have managed to sense when she's about to give them bad news or when she's angry or when she'll yell at them for some reason. This time is sort of like the three of them combined.<p>

"We've lost our Johann!" she yells, tossing a folder at Puck and Julian's direction.

Everyone stops doing what they're doing immediately. They learned the bad way that they don't get to keep rehearsing when she storms into the theater. She wants everyone's attention when she enters dramatically. Puck once tried to keep rehearsing the scene he was working on with Phillip and Rachel's understudy, Jessa, and got a very unpleasant scar when Kate threw her phone at him on stage. She got cheering and applause at the time. It's a story Julian likes to remember every Tuesday, to Puck's horror.

Anyway, he learned his lesson and hurried to open the folder she threw at them.

"Bill's being deported!" Kate goes on. "Apparently his visa has expired and he can't work here because he's Canadian!"

Rachel turns to Matt, who's holding his sticks and has a weird look on his face. "Did you know Bill was Canadian?"

The younger man shakes his head.

"We're one month away from our premiere, we can't start auditions all over again." Julian says from his chair.

"Plus Johann is a capital character, we can't kick him out of the musical." Puck says, looking at paperwork about Bill that seems to be written in Chinese.

"Well, we're going to have to figure it out." Kate says authoritatively. "I've already fired the paralegals who took care of his contract and forgot to check if the guy was freaking American before making him sign it but there's nothing more I can do. So it looks like we're going to have to cast again."

"No, no, Kate, come on!" Puck says, putting the papers aside. "Auditions suck! Hearing random people sing suck!"

"Well, do you have a better idea?" She asks him seriously.

Puck sighs and doesn't say anything.

"I could play him."

There's a moment of silence as everyone turns to where Matt is sitting behind the drums on stage.

"I could. I know the lyrics, the choreography, the lines. I know the musical." Matt goes on. "It'd take less time with me than with some random dude you hire who would learn everything from scratch when we're a month away from our premiere."

Another few seconds go by and nothing is said. Matt fumbles a little on the seat. John decides to break the silence, then.

"Can you sing?"

Matt shakes him head yes. "I've done the music thing my whole life. I've gone through pretty much all classical instruments. And the drums. And the singing as well."

Kate is the next to speak. "You sing? I've known you forever, how don't I know that you can sing?"

Matt shrugs. "I don't do it much. I've done the drums for so long, I got comfortable at it."

"Okay, it's very beautiful that you're coming out as a performer instead of just the crew guy." Puck says. "But you're not trained. There are hundreds of actors out there who have being doing this their whole lives. Maybe we'll be running against our clocks if we hire someone new but at least this guy will know what he's doing."

"Let him audition." Julian says. "We'll have open auditions and we can hear him as well. There's no harm in that, is there?"

Kate looks from Julian to Matt, seeming to be debating something internally. "Okay. I'll have Helen summoning actors here this afternoon. Make sure you'll be done with rehearsals before, say, five?"

Helen nods at Kate and leaves the theater already on the phone with someone.

"Julian? Can I speak with you for a second?" Kate asks.

"Sure", he says, getting up and following her to the little hall at the entrance of the theater. "What's going on?"

She stops walking and turns to him. "Whatever you do, don't hire Matt."

He blinks at her. "What? Why?"

She takes a little too much time to answer. "Because of all the reasons Puck listed."

He scoffs. "We're having auditions in less than a two hour notice, I don't think the brightest actors in LA will come to this."

"Nevertheless, there's no harm in being clear. Matt doesn't play Johann, okay?"

He stares at her for a few seconds. "Okay."

She nods and crosses the hall to the exit, leaving a slightly disturbed Julian standing there.

* * *

><p>John's looking at his script sitting alone on stage at lunch break when Phillip enters the theater. He looks up at him and smiles. The blonde man sits in the first row of the audience.<p>

"Jess and I are rehearsing Bojana and Luka's sex scene after lunch." Phillip says. "You get to see what you and Rachel have been rehearsing for weeks from the audience today."

John thinks about that for a second. It should be interesting to watch that particular scene, one that Rachel and he had a hard time nailing, played by different actors. He also thinks it'll be interesting to see Puck struggle to get Phillip and Jessa to nail it, too.

"Bet you fifty bucks Puck yells at you both by the end of the day." He says, smiling wickedly.

Phillip's eyes round and he acts offended. "Are you trying to make bets on the sake of our musical?"

"He's going to yell at you, that's a fact. We're pros and you're just…"

Phillip raises his eyebrows. "Amateurs?"

"I was going to say 'about to start rehearsing the scene today'".

"You two got yelled at too."

John nods. "We did and we're not ashamed of it. It's an intense scene."

"And a beautiful scene." Phillip says. "They're tough love, Luka and Bojana. Half of their country hate the other half, including their families and somehow they come together and make revolution. It's kind of an epic love story if you think about it.

John smiles at him. "No one writes stories about the ones that come easy."

They share a look for a few seconds and Phillip looks away, seeming shy. "I can't believe how Puck's being so grown up about the sex scene. I mean, it is beautifully written and very mature but he's such a teenager sometimes. There hasn't been one bad pun yet."

They hear a motion on the entrance of the theater and see Rachel, Julian, Puck, Matt, Jessa and the band walking in.

"Okay, let's make inthepinsdance!" Puck shouts, climbing up on stage as Jessa follows him with an expression halfway through a grimace and a smile.

Phillip turns to John, getting up and climbing up on stage as John descends it. "And there we have it." He says.

John nods, laughing. He goes over to the audience, sitting next to Rachel. She stares at him for a few seconds with a weird face. It goes long enough to bother him.

"What?" he finally says.

Rachel shrugs, pressing her lips in a thin line. "I find it interesting that you're going in the opposite direction of the advice you gave me earlier today."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I was told by you to not pursue Noah because we work together and any sort of involvement between us could be potentially complicated, both emotionally and professionally, but you're clearly not following your own advice regarding Phillip."

John makes an outraged face, probably a much better one that the one she did earlier when he confronted her. "I'm not pursuing him. We're co-stars, he's a great talk, that's all."

"Is that how I sounded this morning when I told you this thing with me and Noah was innocent?"

He scoffs, annoyed.

"Friendly relationship advices that don't involve screwing your co-worker are a bitch, aren't they?" she asks him, biting back a smile.

He turns to her, even more annoyed now. "Shut up."

She doesn't hold the laughter back anymore.

They watch rehearsal for a few hours and it's, in fact, very interesting. Rachel doesn't think Jessa's a bad actress or anything close to that, but she does think the girl's timing is just… _off. _She doesn't voice any of that out loud, of course, even though sixteen year old her would have. Unmercifully.

Noah does, though. Both Jessa and Phillip get yelled at that and Rachel doesn't miss the little looks Phillip and John trade as it happens. But as the hours go by they go from something raw to something… a _little_ less raw. They still have a long way to go, she thinks. But then she remembers how she had to struggle to get Bojana's character, too. She trusted Noah would get them there, get them on his vision of what these characters should be like. Plus it's good to be the audience for one afternoon. She's also the audience to the auditions that take place there later in the afternoon after Jessa and Phillip finish their exhaustive rehearsal and go to their dressing rooms shower. A bunch of actors, a lot of them around thirty, show up at the theater and Kate shows up, too. The table in the middle of the audience remembers her a lot of the first time she sang in this theater. Except this time Noah's actually there, along with Julian and Kate.

They watch about four actors on the mic until Julian interrupts a guy dressed like a cowboy who finishes singing a Van Halen song.

"I'm sorry, what are you trying to sell us here?"

The white man makes a confused face. "I don't follow."

"Your obvious niche is country music." Julian says. "Why did you choose a rock song?"

The cowboy straightens his hat. "This is a rock musical. I thought it was appropriate to sing rock."

"Because it's important to take us out of our comfort zone, right, Julian?" Rachel says, turning to him and smiling.

He glares at her and turns back the cowboy. "Yeah, but why did you come as a cowboy, then? You could've played just the rock guy instead of the cowboy guy who can also sing rock'n'roll."

The man tilts his head to the side. "Well, sometimes you can belong someplace and bring this place to a completely different one. Country music is my home; I'm dressed as my home in this place where I don't totally belong. So I can feel my hat and look at my boots and still remember where I came from. It's comforting." He finishes, taking off his hat and looking at it.

There's a few seconds of silence in the theater that follows the cowboy little speech. Rachel hears whispering from the table above them in the audience and sees Noah saying something to Julian before leaving the theater.

"Thanks for auditioning, James." Kate says, smiling at him. He nods and leaves the theater.

It occurs to Rachel, while she's watching this young short guy singing a surprisingly good version of _Fluorescent Adolescent, _that she's yet to see Matt perform. She leaves John and Phillip, who's just gotten in the audience after probably showering in his dressing room, and goes backstage look for him.

She finds him watching the performer with a slightly nervous expression. She goes over to where he's standing. He acknowledges her and looks back at the stage. A few second go by as they watch it together.

"How does it feel like to be you?" Matt asks, turning his head to her.

She seems confused for a second, not understanding which exact aspect of her personality he's referring to.

He puts his hands on his jeans pockets and looks back at the guy on stage doing an impressive flip with his guitar. "You know, rocking performances, reaching incredible notes, always seeming to knock everyone out of their seats without even trying for that."

"I try pretty hard, actually." She tells him in a funny yet serious voice.

He gives her a lopsided smile, watching her from the corner of his eye.

She takes a deep breath and turns to him, making him stand in front of her.

"Do you feel the stage beneath your feet?" He nods. "You're stepping on it now. And you're going to go over there and sing the song you chose like you'll never get a chance to sing it again."

He looks at the center of the stage, feeling a rush of adrenaline through his veins.

"Worst case scenario, that's exactly what happens." She says.

He keeps looking at her. "And best case scenario?"

She's the one who smiles at him now, a smile that seems to know things he's got no clue about.

"You become an important part of telling people a story. Which is about the best thing in the entire world."

Matt feels an even bigger rush go through him. He wants this so much; to be a part of the cast, share their jokes, their project. He's never been so much of a doer before but if this is his window, his chance to _make things_, then he's not going to walk away from this.

"Break a leg, Matthew." Rachel says, giving his hand a squeeze before walking back to the audience.

He watches her go, feeling suddenly empowered. He hears his name being called on stage and takes a deep breath before going to the center of it and picking up the guitar there. He looks up at Kate and Julian.

"Hi. I'm Matt Rudolph and I'll sing one of my favorite songs from my favorite band, The Smiths'_ Reel Around the Fountain_."

Julian smiles from the audience. "That's a brave song choice, Rudolph. Try not to screw it up."

He smiles back at Julian, feeling both challenged and inspired. He starts the first note as the band backs him up.

* * *

><p>Kate adjusts herself in the chair as she, Julian and the cast sit in the theater's conference room. They're gathering pictures and résumés on the table.<p>

"I liked country guy. He's got guts." John says, picking the man's résumé on the table.

"Artic Monkeys guy was good, too." Jessa says.

"Guys, what'd you think of Matt?" Julian asks.

"I, for one, thought he was great." Rachel says. "He's got a remarkable voice and his reading audition was by far the best one."

"Right?" Julian agrees. " I thought so, too. So he's not the best singer but we're looking for a great actor too. And his reading was absolutely amazing." He looks over at Kate, who is looking at him with a slightly pissed off face.

"I don't think Matt has the profile to be on the musical." She says, throwing him a hard stare.

"I think there's no such thing as a 'profile' to be on the musical." He answers, staring back at her.

Everyone seems to feel the sudden tension. Phillip interrupts.

"How about we vote? I don't think we'll get to a consensus here, we're a diversified room."

They _were_ a diversified room. The cast and crew had all sorts of people, from black to Jews to Republicans to Catholics to vegans to gun carriers. They were a mixed pan.

"Those in favor of choosing country guy, raise hand, please." Phillip goes on.

John, two guys from the band and Bojana's mom raise hands.

"Artic Monkeys guy."

Jessa and two girls from the chorus raise hands.

"Those in favor of Matt raise hands."

Everyone except Kate and those who voted for the others raise their hands. Julian smiles.

"Okay, I think we have a Johann." He says. "That's it for today, guys. I'll go outside and give these guys the news."

He's barely outside the room when Kate follows him.

"You'll not hire Matt." She says, stepping in front of him.

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Why won't I hire him? He was great."

"I gave you one instruction. Whatever you do, don't hire Matt."

"And I used by rational power of judgment to pick him anyway. Why are you so determined to not let him get hired?"

"It doesn't matter, okay? I don't tell you everything." She says impatiently. "I gave you a simple instruction and you're about to not follow it."

"Why are so controlling and obsessed?" he yells, losing it. "Don't you see me? Don't you see everyone in that room that also have voice in the musical?"

"You know what? I'm not having this conversation with you." She goes around him and enters the theater.

He follows her, steam coming out of his ears. The actors are gathered on stage, seeming nervous. They acknowledge both of them and get a more serious air.

"I want to thank everyone in advance for auditioning in such short notice." She says. "We came to a decision. Johann will be played by James Segel."

The cowboy cheers as some of the other guys shake his hand. Julian notices how miserable Matt looks as he goes backstage and follows him.

"Hey." He calls out. Matt turns around in the hallway and stares at him.

"You were my choice." Julian says.

The other man looks down. "I don't get it. I really thought I nailed it. I mean, the audition is a blur to me, it was such a rush, I don't remember almost anything. But I do remember the feeling that I got. That I was exactly where I'm supposed to be. Forever."

Julian swallows. It was rare that someone would be so open about something like that to him. Even Puck takes him a lot of effort and patience to be able to talk about feelings of any sort. And there it was, this talented boy who had seemed to have found himself. Julian figures he owns the guy some honesty, too. He couldn't let him down like that.

"You won in the room." He mumbles. "You had the majority of the votes. Kate vetoed it."

Matt looks at him with a perplexed face.

"I don't think that's fair to you. I'm going to Peter." He goes on, suddenly deciding that.

The younger man seems angry and storms out without a word. Julian takes a breath and goes over to ABC's building across the street. If there's a line, he's going to cross it with Kate. He just can't stand not making the decisions with her. They had been doing that until the whole Matt thing.

He reaches Peter's room with facility as his secretary lets him in easily. Peter looks up at him as he enters.

"Cortez, what brings you here?"

Julian sits down. "There has been a little bit of an argument at the theater on the choice of the actor who's playing Johann."

"Yeah, I heard about the problem with Bill's license to work, that one was a bummer."

"So we had auditions this afternoon so we could pick another actor to play him. And Matt auditioned."

He expects that to get Peter's attention, but the older man just keeps staring at him.

"And?"

"He was really good. He's inexperienced but he's really good. And I think he should get the part."

Peter raises his eyebrows. "So? What's stopping you?"

"Kate refused to let us pick him. I don't know why exactly but she made it abundantly clear that she didn't want him to be member of the cast."

"So you came to me so I could rule it?"

"Pretty much, yes."

Peter nods and hums. Then he looks down at the papers in his desk. "Don't kid yourself, boy. It's her decision."

Julian blinks. "Sir, she can't unilaterally make decisions for the musical. We voted in that room, most of us for Matt."

"And she vetoed your decision."

"Yes, she did, but she shouldn't be able to!"

"There's hierarchy in show business for a reason. She must have her motives."

"Sir, with all due respect, it puzzles me that you're not angry for the fact that she's trying to sabotage you son."

"I don't think that's remotely true." Peter says, seeming confused. "They grew up as brother and sister, Kate wouldn't do that."

"Then why did she come to me before he even auditioned to tell me not to hire him?"

That seems to get Peter's attention.

"Is he really theater material?" he asks Julian with a serious air.

"More than he knows." The younger man says, staring Peter right ahead.

"And the cast and crew voted for him?"

"The smashing majority of it, yes."

Peter stares at Julian for a few more seconds. "Okay, then. I'll have Helen drafting his contract."

"That's it?" Julian asks, surprised. "Shouldn't we talk to Kate first?"

The older man raises his eyebrows. "Son, do you want to be the one who tells Kate Mitchell that her decision has been revoked?"

Julian swallows. "Not really, no."

* * *

><p>Matt enters Kate's office in a determinate manner. She's standing in front of her desk looking through some papers and she looks up at him. Her expression doesn't tell him anything. He walks in closer. They stare at each other for a second.<p>

"I sang great. And read even better." He says in a controlled voice. "I should've taken that part. I know it, you know it. Everyone in that freaking theater knew it! But somehow you didn't give me the part I knew should've been mine. I want to do more than just the drums, I wanna sing and act and dance. You never think I'm good enough!"

"It was a group decision." She says, simply.

"No, it wasn't! It was you subsuming everyone else to your decision!" He looks at her desperately, trying to understand what he needs to do to convince her that he can be a part of her project. "I know I'm not a golden boy like John but I can do this. If I practice and if Lisa and Puck and Julian help me, I can be more than you think I can be. I can be good, Kate, I swear I can."

"I never thought you couldn't." she says and that shuts him up.

He tilts his head, confused out if his mind.

"I never wanted you to be lessened to the drums." She goes on. "I think your audition was impressive. I think you can be every little bit of the performer John is. But if you're in the drums, I'm your boss. And if you're in the musical? Peter's your boss."

He stares at her right ahead.

"I know you'd never want this. I know you'd be miserable." She finishes.

He doesn't say anything for a second. Then he shakes his head slowly.

"You still see me as that smartass, goofy twelve year old boy, don't you? The boy who had a crush on you but that you would only see as a baby bother."

It's Kate's turn to seem taken aback.

"I'm not that kid anymore, Kate. I'm a grown man now and I can take full responsibility for the consequences of my own choices! I could've expected this patronizing, overprotective crap from him but not from you. Never from you. I thought we were the same. I thought you empathized with me. Situations were reversed I would've never pulled that crap on you."

With that, he exits the room, leaving an astonished Kate behind.

* * *

><p>Rachel is gathering her things in her dressing room at the end of the day and getting ready to go home after showering and changing. She hears a knock on her opened door. She leans up and turns around. Noah is standing beside the door wearing the same clothes he had been the whole day and seeming rushed.<p>

"Do you make it a habit to not watch auditions?" she asks him, smiling.

"Every chance I get." He answers, smiling back wickedly. "I'd like to show you something. I know you're tired from a long day here but I really need to show you this."

He seems eager and excited. She nods and grabs her purse. "Sure, let me just find my phone and text John and everyone else I'm not giving them a ride home."

She picks it up on her dresser and they leave her room as she types on her phone. They reach the exit of the theater without running into anyone. Rachel stops on her tracks.

"It's not in the theater, this thing you want to show me?"

He shakes his head.

"Where is it, then?"

"You don't like surprises?"

She thinks about that for a second. "Not usually, no."

"It's not that far. It's in the city. And that's all I'm telling you."

"Can you at least tell me if I'm dressed properly?"

She blushes a little bit at the way he stares at her sundress. The look he gives her makes her want to take her clothes off and his, additionally. She's ridiculously attracted to him. It's stupid.

"You look fine." He says simply.

They reach his car and she tries to not act very controlling about the way things are going. They talk about the play in the drive, about what they expect from it and how their lives are about to chance once they've had their premiere. They talk about her life in LA and in the house that she and a portion of the cast and crew are living in. It's easy to talk to him, no harder than talking to John or her dads, and she feels like she's really having fun for the first time since she's come to LA. People in her house always seemed to judge and criticize her controlling, maniacal and scheduling ways, but it seems these things about her amuse him more than anything else. She likes making him laugh by narrating little bits of stories about their routine in the house.

She notices he's parking the car outside Universal Studios. It confuses her. He unbuckles his belt and she does the same as he leaves the car. She follows him with her eyes as he steps in front of a studio door. He unlocks it with some keys he takes out of his pants pocket but doesn't open it. Then he turns around and notices she didn't follow him.

"Come on!" he calls after her, waving his hand.

She gets out of the car and stands a few feet from where he is with his back to the studio door. He looks a bit nervous. It makes her smile a little.

"It's a door. A big ass door. But things will get good once I open it, I expect." He says and she raises her eyebrows at him, confused. He looks down and expires, seeming a little frustrated. "And this is so not how I rehearsed the first line to be."

She smiles and bites her lip. He raises his eyes to her again and she thinks she sees something change there. She stares at him expectantly.

"I've wanted to give you a housewarming gift since you invited me to your open house weeks ago. I wanted to give you something to make you feel welcomed here, something that'd make you feel like you were home. Even a little. And then cowboy guy inspired me today with his little lame speech."

She laughs quietly, shaking her head.

"I couldn't remember of any musical that could link New York and LA and it's not like I know many musicals to begin with. But I do know about what's on the other side of this door. So think of it as my housewarming gift to you."

He turns around again and opens it.

Rachel makes a noise she doesn't even know she could as she stares at what's in front o her. She enters the studio and isn't capable of forming any words. It's a remarkable studio reconstitution of Broadway Street, with its small buildings and the little shops. They're currently standing at the corner of Broadway and Canal St. She's too busy drinking everything in and forces herself to listen to whatever he's saying beside her.

"It's not yours. It's not even mine. It's ABC's property, they run a show that takes place in New York here."

She's still looking around, utterly amazed.

"I did have to convince the incredibly talkative mid-aged guard who secures this studio at night to give the keys so I could copy them." He goes on behind her. "On the brighter side, I know everything there's to know about the history of ABC studios since the eighties. Did you know that Star Trek Next Generation's Tasha Yar, played by lovely Denise Crosby, used to come here every Thursday night to make out with him?"

"No, I didn't." She laughs, walking a few more steps further into the scenario and turning to him now.

He walks towards her. "Golden story, I'll have him tell you someday." He stops in front of her now, trying to gather a serious air.

"I know it's not as good as actual Broadway. I just wanted you to have somewhere to come when you fell homesick. And this place is the closest I could get from that. And it's fantastic, too, because it's, you know, in LA."

He smiles and hands her the keys to the studio. She grabs it and stare at them for a few seconds. There's something very big about the fact that he just gave her the keys to a place that almost make her feel like she's home. But her heart is beating really fast and she feels kind of high from the place and maybe for the fact that he's looking down at her and she can see the prop signboard of the little theater she had her first professional presentation years ago right behind his head is preventing her from processing what's exactly going on.

Still, she thinks she can try to voice some of it. "Noah, this is the best housewarming gift ever. Nobody's ever given me New York before." She says, looking up at him and tilting her head to the side.

"Again, not giving you anything, this is ABC property."

She slaps his shoulder, jokingly. "Will you let me romanticize this all I want?"

He's the one who laughs now, raising both hands in surrender.

Rachel takes another look around. She wants to print this place into her brain. She follows a fake street lamp with her eyes until the end of it and notices it's off.

"Hey, don't look up, don't look up, it's gonna kill all the magic!", he says. "You look up in here you see reflectors and a ceiling, you look up in actual New York you see sky!"

She raises her eyebrows.

"..scrapers." he adds with a funny face.

She glares at him now, wanting to kiss that smirk out of his face. She feels the irrational part of her brain start to gain control over her, begging her to close the gap between them and lay her lips on his. She's done it a thousand times in her head and it's always so, so good. She knows the real thing won't let her down. She hears him speaking to her from a distance.

"Hello?" he says and it makes her stop and focus on what's he's saying. "I think I lost you for a second. Do you ever not think?"

She hears John's voice from earlier that day saying it's a bad, bad idea. And as the rational part of her brain, she thinks she should let him win this battle. Because she's done a handful of stupid things in her life when she's turned off her mind. She doesn't want him to be another one of these. She also randomly remembers one of Matt's song choice verse for earlier and how she thought of Noah when she heard it.

Rachel offers her arm to him, smiling. "Not if I can help it. Want me to show you around?"

Noah links his arm with hers. "Yes, please. Show me a piece of the most overrated city of the world."

_Fifteen minutes with you, I wouldn't say no._

She gives him a tight smile, not wanting to pick his bait. And when she thinks back about that night, the night she spent showing him a fake piece of her favorite place on the entire planet, she really hopes they can get Tony nominations because she has the feeling that showing him around the real thing would be even better.

* * *

><p>Kate's sitting on her desk at her office, having been there for a few hours off her working clock. It's not like she follows it anyway. She's going through the cast and crew's contracts, looking for any mistakes or inconsistencies there. She doesn't really trust the legal department to do that on their own anymore.<p>

Peter had called her earlier and said that his assistant would bring her a copy of Matt's contract and that he had been hired. She didn't love the idea of someone going over her, obviously, but she was happy for Matt. Even if the consequences of him getting hired were not so inviting.

She puts them aside and gets Matt's new contract. She compares it to his old one, impressed with the difference of salary between the cast and the crew. Matt will make a hell lot of more money than he did as a member of the band. She's never bothered to look at their paychecks but she finds it amusing that Rachel or John alone gain more than Lisa, Puck and Julian together. And that any of these three earn more money than all the band members combined.

She hears a knock at the door and looks up. Julian pokes his head inside.

"Hey." He says sheepishly.

She calmly joins all the papers in her hand and puts them aside, looking down again. "Hi."

He seems to take that as an invitation and enters her office, closing the door behind him and seeming a little bit nervous.

"We have our disagreements." He says. "And despite the fact that they happen more often than I'd like, we're a great team, Kate."

She doesn't say anything.

"I'm glad things worked out for the best today." He goes on, walking closer to her desk. "He's happy and he's included and I think he'll really surprise us as rehearsals go."

She presses her lips in a thin line and crosses her arms on her desk.

"Come on, say something." He asks.

Kate finally looks up at him now.

"I asked you not to hire Matt Rudolph today. And somehow, I'm looking at his signed contract as a member of the cast of _4 AM Miracle_." She says in a low voice.

Julian frowns, seeming thrown for a second. "Did you hear him? The guy's great! You think this was just me playing stubborn?"

"I think you hired him because he's good and because I told you not to. In that order."

"So what? I made a perfectly rational judgment call and hired the best guy for the job. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? So what if I hired him for these two reasons?"

"Because the second reason never should've been a valid one for you call. You don't get to challenge me. You don't get to step over me because you fell like it."

"And you don't get to get in the way of a casting because the guy is like a brother to you!"

"I never took that into consideration when I told you to not cast him today! What I did take into account is that his personal relationship with his father could jeopardize the production! I don't make calls based on my gut, Julian."

He stares hard at her, breathing hard now.

"I told you not to hire him. And because I said that, you did. That's just unacceptable." She says in a low voice.

Julian seems to be having a hard time understanding her very simple path of thought. She decides to lay it out clear and share with him the conclusion that path took her.

"You're fired."


	7. Chapter 6

**A.N.: I had a blast writing this chapter. You'll see in it a lot of the things that I love, from movies to little sentences that made me smile when I wrote them. Reviews are always welcome, it's kind of frustrating to do this with no feedback. I hope you enjoy it and finally feel like there's some action for our main couple there ;)**

**Chapter 6**

Julian's sitting on the table in front of his trailer with a coffee mug in his hand and his feet on the bench. He woke up abruptly and felt kind of empty inside. Kate hasn't called him and no one has, as a matter of fact. He figures Puck never came home last night because he hasn't seen a trail of his friend since he woke up. He had left Kate's office astonished the previous day. But he was also pretty angry. He wouldn't go to the theater. Fired is fired. He didn't think it had sunk on yet, though.

He feels his phone vibrating on the table he's sitting on. Peter's name is on the screen. He takes a deep breath and answers.

"Cortez, can we meet in my office?" Peter's voice seems energetic.

He blinks. "I don't think so since I don't work for you anymore."

"Yeah, it's about that." Peter says on the other side of the line. "My lawyer just came here with a rescission."

Julian swallows. It was all really happening. And they'd come so close to building a wonderful musical. He wonders if Puck and Lisa will be able to handle managing everything on their own. He thinks about Lisa, who hasn't even come back to work yet since the incident. He wonders who's going to put Rachel on her place and coach Matt and lead the band and mediate the always present competition between John and Phillip. He puts the mug down, feeling a little sick.

"Okay, I'm on my way."

* * *

><p>They're doing nothing when Rachel gets in the theater with her hair up on a bun and leggings. John notices her and raises his hand from the spot he's at in the audience. The majority of the cast hasn't arrived yet and only John and Matt are currently in the theater.<p>

"Nervous for your first day?" Rachel asks Matt, who's got the script on his hand.

Matt takes a breath, as if remembering something. "Do you know what my father said when I played him my first drum solo at age six?"

Rachel and John stare at him, expectantly.

"He said to burn down the tedious draft of Paul Lumber's contract."

John glances at Rachel, who seems equally confused.

"Yeah, I know, it doesn't make any sense. I thought it didn't at the time as well. Then he kept walking and talking to whoever he was talking to on the phone." Matt looks down at the script and then up again. "And now he signs my paychecks." He gives them a tight, fake smile.

"Dude, Peter doesn't have any say in the musical." John tells him. "We respond to Lisa, Kate, Puck and Julian."

"Plus I know you have it in you to nail Johann." Rachel adds, resting one hand on his shoulder.

He nods, seeming stressed out still. "I know you mean well but right now your words are just that. Words."

Rachel takes her hand back, nodding, too. "I know. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, then."

She exchanges a quick look with John, who seems sad for Matt. Then she notices the sudden change in John's expression. It's like she knows what he's saying before he does.

"Where were you last night? I never saw you coming in."

"I did." Matt says without looking up. "She came in around two. Tried to sneak in and thought I couldn't see her from the living room. You don't sneak in wearing heels, Rachel." He adds, glancing at her.

She closes her eyes and presses them with her fingers. She really thought she had succeeded in coming home without being seen. She should've remembered Matthew and his crazy sleeping pattern.

"I'd really rather not have this conversation right now." She mumbles.

"Rach, it's me." John says, looking at her. "What's going on?"

"Good morning!" An energetic voice comes from the entrance. Rachel closes her eyes and John turns around, seeing Puck coming in. He notices the quick look he gives Rachel before turning to the table on the center of the audience and putting his bag down. "Where's everyone?"

"I think we're early." Matt says.

Puck checks his watch. "No, we're not. Seriously, where's everyone?"

"It _is _early, it's not even nine yet." John says. He can't shake the feeling that Puck wants to start rehearsing as soon as possible. He notices the way Rachel is furiously biting her inner cheek, a clear sign she shows when she's nervous. "Maybe we should wait for them right here. All the four of us. Making small talk."

He sees Rachel sigh to his left and get closer to him. "Let's get some coffee." She whispers.

He smiles triumphantly and they leave the theater together.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm serious!" she exclaimed, arm looped around his." For one month I'd come every day to this very bistro and have a blueberry muffin. A bet's a bet."<em>

"_And I have to say, a pretty stupid one." Noah said, shaking his head. "That '05 Barcelona team was unbeatable. It was unfair to the other teams."_

"_Well, I'm a meringue all the way, I'd never bet against them." She stated, letting go of his arm and standing in front of the fake lamp placed in front of the fake front of the bistro in fake New York set, the same one she used to go to as a junior in college._

_He nodded, looking at her. "You know, you're the one soccer fan I've met in this country. Everyone else just cares for football and baseball and all that crap."_

"_I care for those, too."_

"_Yeah, but you care for other things. Things that are popular worldwide and not just here. We can't get our heads out of our asses for one second and actually care for what the rest of the world is playing." He raised both arms in an angry manner. "I watched a video once where Americans couldn't tell how many players there are in a soccer game."_

"_I've watched this video, it's depressing. I mean, we are talking about the most popular sport in the world."_

"_Right? And no one has a clue!"_

_He sighed in an exasperated manner. Then he raised his eyes to her again and laughed. "Sorry. We got a little bit out of topic here."_

"_It's okay. You're passionate about this." She told him. "I think it's good. You don't get to show a lot of your passions in the theater like the rest of us do."_

_Noah looked at her with a confused expression._

_She went on, then. "You know, I'm home there, I'm doing what I've always dreamed, and so does John and everyone else, Julian, who turns his rock background into songs that we sing from the top of our lungs, and Lisa, who's devoted her life to dance. Kate, who's allowed to be that bossy when she's that talented. Helen, best assistant ever, she can get us on the phone with the president if we ask her"._

_He kept watching her._

"_But you? You went to film school and you write screenplays. You're a movie writer who happened to write a remarkable musical script. But sometimes I feel that you miss the cinema language on your script. Sometimes I feel that a certain piece of your writing was meant to work in a shot."_

_Noah lowered his eyes for a second. "I didn't think anyone else noticed that."_

"_Are you kidding me? I read every single piece of your script when I got it from John. Multiple times."_

_He stared at her for a few seconds with a soft expression._

_Rachel took a deep breath. "I have an idea. I've made you watch Funny Girl, Evita and West Side Story. They're my favorite musicals in the world and they happen to contain the three female leads I'd like to play one day. So how about I watch some of the movies you'd like to have written and directed?"_

_Noah's face lit up. "Really? That'd be awesome! I've commented all my favorite movies with Julian in an incessant way over the years, he'd tell me to shut up if I started a vocal essay on Citizen Kane for the thousandth time. And in college there'd be classes and sessions to talk about directors and tendencies, film clubs. I lost that when I graduated. I'd love someone new to talk about this."_

"_It's a date." She said. Then she immediately regretted saying that. She didn't want him to think she was asking him out. The way he smiled at her made her feel better, though._

"_You know, there's a David Fincher marathon not too far from here. It's late but if we leave now we might be able to watch Fight Club, it's the last one on today's list."_

"Did you hit that or what?" John interrupts her, picking up his cup of coffee from the table in front of them. "Is that why he looked at you funny when he arrived? Was that his version of the walk of shame?"

Rachel rolls her eyes at him. "Will you let me finish the story?"

"We have rehearsal in five minutes, you can't afford to tell every single detail from yesterday. Just skip to the good part!"

She rolls her eyes. "Every part is important. Every single piece of the story converges to the very ending that brought us here today."

He grimaces. "Why do you have to assign cosmic meaning to everything? Can't whatever happened last night just be what it was and not have happened for some ulterior motive?"

"Except it did happen for an ulterior motive." She states.

"Hey, you two, rehearsal time." A female voice says close to them on the table. They look up and Helen's standing there with her binder in hand. They both stand up in silence and walk to the theater with Helen walking a few steps behind them. "Do I have to keep tracking you every day?"

Neither of them say anything, seeming embarrassed. "We'll get back to this." John murmurs as they enter the theater.

* * *

><p>Julian gets in Peter's office still feeling a little sick. He greets the assistant, like he used to do when he still was an employee of the network. She tells him Peter's inside waiting for him and he goes in.<p>

The older man is looking at some papers when he enters the room, but quickly acknowledges him and puts everything aside, gesturing for him to sit on the chair across him. He does.

Peter crosses his arm on the table."So she fired you. You must've really screwed it up."

Julian sighs. "Look, I really don't feel like talking about it. Can I just sign the papers and be done with all this?"

Peter nods. "Sure. I'll have my assistant bring them right now." He then calls his assistant and asks her to bring the rescission to his office.

They stay in silence for a second. Julian feels his heart beat in a angry way on his chest. He feels like he should say something, anything. Is it possible to want something so much that you can put it together again with sheer will power?

"No, you know what?" Julian starts in an angry tone, "This musical could go places. I really think it has potential for Emmy nominees, if you want to know the truth. And now what? You hire a new person? Another musician to be in charge of the musical part?"

Peter shrugs. "I wouldn't know. Kate's the art's division manager. She'll be in charge of that, I assume."

Julian runs his hands on his face, really hurt by the lack of importance Peter's giving him. Again the feeling of injustice comes back to him. He sinks his face on both hands."I just can't believe she fired me." He mumbles through his hands. "Who does that? Who fires someone for having a different opinion and democratically casting someone she didn't want for the part?"

"We don't take a lot of decisions democratically in this business, son."

Julian raises his eyebrows. "Should I feel warned about that? One simple action strictly different from the course she had in mind and that's it? No second chances?"

The chairman presses his lips in a thin line.

"Is that the rule in this business?" he insists, really expecting an answer for that.

Peter takes a deep breath and adjusts himself in his chair. "Look, there's something you should probably know about Kate."

Julian stares at the other man, hoping to get something to try to make sense of everything that happened in the last 16 hours.

"Kate has this condition called Asperger syndrome. She was diagnosed at age fourteen and has lived with it since then."

So _that's _it.

"I know about this syndrome." Julian mumbles. "People with it can't really recognize sarcasm, right? They take everything literally, they don't really know how to empathize, they're wildly rational."

"Exactly. She's not the highest level of the syndrome, and it doesn't affect her cognitive development. She's brilliant, for that matter, highest IQ in the building. But she's not very bright socially."

"Does she take anything? Like, to control it or something?"

"She tried it as soon as she was diagnosed. It didn't work out, it kept her really doped out and she wasn't really herself. Her parents chose to stop it."

Julian takes a second to absorb all of that.

"Well, that explains a lot."

"Yes, it does. So don't take it personally that she fired you. She would've done it no matter who it was."

But still something about all of this seems _off._

Julian raises his eyes to Peter again. "She can't keep doing this. She can't keep firing people who don't follow her orders. What kind of world is that that she can't be told no and have to power to fire who tells her no?"

"She's been doing just fine in this world. She's brought four musicals and two shows to uncontroversial success."

"Yeah, well, what about her personal life? Her family, her friends, love interests? Does she break up or move away from people who don't bend over for her?"

"She keeps her distance from people in general. Her family's in Minnesota and she doesn't visit very often. I wouldn't know about boyfriends. She's very closed with her love life."

Julian's about to ask him who she tells important things to when Peter's assistant enters the office with a folder. She hands it to him and nods at Julian, leaving the room right after Peter's thanked her.

"Here it is." Peter hands him the papers.

He hurriedly signs everything.

"Who knows about this? In the theater, who knows about this?"

"Well, me, Matthew, and now you. I wouldn't broadcast it if I were you." He gathers the papers he was previously working on. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a contract to go over."

Julian swallows, a little hurt by the dismissal. He gets up and hurriedly heads back to the theater. He's not satisfied with the piece of information handed by Peter.

* * *

><p><em>They were sitting in the grass at the outdoor movie theater, the warm August air on their skins. The place was fairly crowded and both Rachel and Puck were sitting on the back, having arrived there a few minutes before the movie started. There was a projector in the end pointed at the screen, close to where they were.<em>

_She felt his eyes on her as she watched Edward Norton's first encounter with Brad Pitt's character. She stared sideways at him and he quickly turned his eyes back to the movie._

_But after the fourth time this happened, she had a little bit of a freak out._

"_Will you let me watch the movie?" she whispered heatedly._

"_I'm sorry, I'm just—" He sighed. "I'm trying to watch the movie through you."_

_She made a confused face. "What?"_

"_I've watched it a million times; I want to see your reactions to the scenes I love."_

_She smiled. "That's like, 80% cute. And 20% creepy."_

_Puck laughed. "Okay, I'm sorry. Let's just watch the movie."_

_And they did, until the crowd applauded when the buildings come down at the final scene. Rachel gave him a weird look about that, but was fairly distracted by the penis frame before the credits rolled. She turned to him, laughing._

"_Was that a…?"_

"_Big healthy cock? Yes." He answered, laughing, too. "Did you like it?"_

"_The cock or the movie?"_

_He tilted his head and got up laughing, then extended his hand to her._

"_I did. It's very interesting." She took his hand and got up, too._

"_How come?"_

"_As a rule, I don't usually enjoy glorified violence in movies, but it's different in this one. They're people who are fighting because they want to. Because it helps them, it gets them through things."_

_Puck smiled at her, shaking his head. "That's something I thought as well, eleven years ago when I sat in Julian's living room and watched the DVD with him."_

_She wrinkled her nose at him. _"_Huh, 1999 you were very articulated, wasn't he?"_

"_1999 me jerked off for a playboy magazine that night."_

_She laughed hard at that._

_They reached the exit of the place, walking towards his car._

"_You wanna get a drink or something?" He asked, looking at her sideways._

_She was ready to say no. She should've said no. It was late and she had rehearsal early the next day. But foresight is 20/20, and now she understands why she had the urge to say yes._

"You had the urge to say yes?" John asks her as they sit in the theater watching Puck take over rehearsal because Julian is nowhere to be seen.

"I did."

"And if you hadn't?"

"Then my plan for today wouldn't happen."

John's forehead wrinkles. "You have a plan? What's this plan?"

She smiles. "You'll see."

He watches her for a few seconds more, as if trying to figure her out. Then they both stare at Matt and the band on stage as he goes over his solo. Puck's got his phone on his ear as Matt sings and he gets close enough to where they're sitting that they can hear what he's saying.

"Dude, where are you?" Puck whispers heatedly. "I'm trying to make things work on my own but it's kinda hard without you 'cause you're the big shoulders here! And I don't remember I just said that, so never bring it up! Answer your fucking phone!"

They watch as Puck hangs up, seeming pissed.

"When did you see him for the last time?" John asks him.

"Yesterday before Rachel and I –", he stops himself. "Yesterday in rehearsal."

John gives Rachel a look, one she deliberately avoids by staring ahead.

Puck puts his phone back in his pocket. "I wish Lisa were here, she'd know how to handle this better than me."

"She'll be back in a week." Rachel says. "She'll be back and we'll go back to dancing again. Just like we're supposed to."

"I'll go to Kate's office, maybe she knows where Julian is." Puck says and hurriedly moves to the side door.

But he never gets to actually leave the theater because Julian enters it.

"Dude!" he yells, and Matt stops singing, as does the band. "Where the hell were you? I've been trying to reach you all morning."

Everybody looks up at Julian, who says nothing.

"What happened?" Rachel asks him, getting up from her seat in the audience.

Julian sighs. "Can I talk to Matt in private, please?"

"Julian." Puck says and that seems to get his attention. "What's going on?"

The Latino takes a quick look at everyone in the theater.

"I'm fired. I don't work in this musical anymore. Kate fired me."

There's a few seconds of silence as the words sink in everyone's minds. Then everyone kind of starts talking and asking things at the same time, so fast and in such a confusing way that all he can do is look over at Matt and nod at the guy, who goes backstage as he follows him. Everyone else keeps talking and asking things and yelling. Julian can make out Puck's voice among all, but all he does is go backstage and into Matt's dressing room.

He thinks he's not being followed and for that, he's grateful. He enters Matt's dressing room and the guy shuts the door as soon as he's in, then puts both hands on his waist.

"It was because of me, wasn't it?" he asks Julian.

"I'm not here to talk about this." The other man says. "Your father told me about her condition and I was hoping you could talk to me about it some more."

Matt seems confused. "He told you about the Asperger? Why would he do that? She hates when people know about this."

"I'm thinking he figured he owned some me kind of explanation which, quite frankly, I thought he did, too."

"What do you want me to say?"

Julian looks around, seeming agitated. He sits on the couch and puts his hand on his thighs. "How it works. How to be around someone like her."

"You just got fired, you're not gonna be around her anymore."

Julian sighs heavily. "Matt, come on. I just had my mind made up about her since I met her and it's shattered now. I keep thinking about a lot of things in retrospect so I can place them again with this new piece of information that I have. You grew up with her. You know what she's like."

Matt stares at Julian for a few seconds, a look a lot like those he gets from Puck sometimes. He doesn't have time to feel embarrassed, though, because he knows something big is going to happen now that the whole cast and crew know he's been fired. He just needs to get out of the theater as soon as he can.

Matt sits down next to him. "She was medically diagnosed at age fourteen. Before that she was kind of an outsider at school. I was just a few years younger than her but I'd see her walking around alone a lot. She didn't have a lot of friends so I used to be her company in recess. She used to like to make these little games that she used to challenge herself with. Sometimes she had to walk on the fence of the pre-school playground, see how many times she could do it before falling off. Sometimes it'd be something indoors, like planning systems of role playing games." He looks up at Julian. "You know what those are?"

"Not really."

"It's a system that rules the whole process. How many points you get, how the characters are made, which are their technical features. It's incredibly complicated and mathematical, too. Her grades were ridiculous. Her parents almost transferred her to a school for gifted people, but her doctor said it maybe wouldn't be good for her."

Julian swallows, taking this all in slowly. He honestly feels like a jerk for having yelled at her and fought with her the whole previous day. What was very simple to her, what her one-track could see was something that got him yelling and pissed at her. He knows that feeling guilty is probably not appropriate, seeing how he still thinks he was right, but this whole scenario now makes everything less outrageous for him.

Matt keeps talking. "She likes to be alone and that's one of her favorite things in the world. So sometimes you need to give her some space. You think she needs you, that she needs someone, but that's not true. Most time, it's not true."

He feels like the words are coming out of his mind before he can really censor them. "How can I…"

"What?" Matt smiles sadly at him. "Make her need you?"

He doesn't even know if that's what he was going to say.

"She's not your project, man. She's not someone you get to fix. She's what she is and that's it."

His head is seriously pounding right now. He just needs to go home and wrap his mind about all of this. He presses his lips in a thin line. "I should go."

"Okay."

Matt opens the door and Julian leaves his dressing room, heading to the back exit of the theater, hoping to find no one. He's halfway into the parking lot when he looks up, seeing the ABC building across the street from the theater. He passes through his car and heads to the other side of the street. He doesn't really want to go home to be alone. There's only really one person he wants to talk to right now.

* * *

><p><em>They were in the pub they usually went from the theater, sitting near the counter because the place was crowded. It was near two thirty and the booths were all taken. They had beers in front of them.<em>

"_I really like this song." Rachel said after taking a sip of her beer._

_He smiled at her, because of course she really likes _The Runaway's_ Bad Reputation._

"_Have you ever been here before?" she went on, feeling a little rush from his stare._

"_No, I haven't. You come here with John?"_

"_And Lisa, Phillip, Jessa, the band guys. We usually trash talk all of you after drink number 4."_

_He laughed. "Really? Who gets more hate?"_

_She shook her head. "I can't really tell you that."_

"_It's Julian, isn't it?"_

_She took another sip from her beer, noticing the way he watches her mouth as she does. She was starting to feel a good buzz and the only thing that'd probably make her night better was if she closed the gap between them and laid her lips on his._

"_He can be like that sometimes." He went on, for what she's glad. She thought that any moment they're not talking is potentially dangerous. "But he's also a genius and we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."_

_She made a curious face._

"_I never told you the story of how we got picked for the grant, did I?" She shook her head no. "We were at the period called Holocaust, where writers and musicians are desperately trying to get funding for their projects. So Julian has this vision of this country in East Europe dominated by USSR. He writes all the songs and shows them to me. So I love it and start writing the story to go with those songs. But I'm stuck, I'm deadly stuck and l have to hurry to get the scripts to the networks. So he boldly sends his songs and the shitty crap I had written to all networks we knew. And it gets picked. Kate liked his songs but didn't really have a lot of faith in the script. So she tries to get him to hire someone else to write the musical, someone who wasn't stuck and could do it in two weeks tops."_

"_Oh my god."_

"_I know. He told me that as a motivational tool."_

"_Did it work?"_

_He shrugged. "I did see red at the time. I did not see inspiration, though."_

_She sighed and looked at the counter with a thoughtful expression. "So if Julian hadn't stuck up for you…"_

"_We wouldn't be here." He completed._

"_I'd be in New York waiting tables, going on five auditions a week looking for my big break and you'd be… where, exactly?"_

_He sighs bigly, looking like he doesn't even want to think about that. "I don't know. Probably working on some short movie and wanting to move on to screenplays."_

"_Which is still what you want to do." She said, tilting her head to the side._

_He pinches his earlobe. "I have time. Maybe our big break won't be the way we planned it, your name on Broadway lights and mine in the end of a critically acclaimed movie. But we do have time. This could be the beginning of something very nice for our careers."_

_She smiled at him, feeling like they already shared something. He got up, getting closer to her. "I have to piss."_

_She laughed, amazed by how he can be so sweet and in the next second act like he never said anything. She watched him go, a smile on her lips. It was turning into one of her best nights since she arrived in L.A._

"_Boy, you'd be in a lot of trouble right now if I were a journalist."_

_Rachel turned to spot the voice came from and saw a red haired girl sitting at the corner of the counter. She immediately felt a rush of panic. But Noah and she had only talked, right? Was that something publishable? She snorts at her own stupidity. They were all into each other's space, talking lowly and clearly flirting. John had gotten a note in a tabloid for walking to the parking lot of the theater with Phillip. He's more famous than her, granted, but still. Soon enough and they'll all be, too._

"_Are you?" she asked in a high pitched voice._

_The girl takes a few peanuts from the bowl in front of her. "No, I'm not." She stuffs her mouth with them._

_Rachel sighs in relief._

"_So, are you closing the deal or what?"_

_She choked on her beer, some of it going in her nose. She coughed and took a napkin to clean her face and lap._

"_Okay, if you know us you know he's my boss."_

"_Yeah." She sighed, looking at the space Noah had walked. "Your stupidly hot boss."_

"_Well, yes. But the boss thing kind of overlaps the other part, right?"_

"_Definitely. You don't want to go there."_

"_Exactly. That's what my best friend said, too."_

"_That's John Webber, right?"_

"_Okay, are you sure you're not a journalist?"_

_The girl laughed. "I'm not. I'm Audrey." She extends s hand and Rachel shakes it. "I'm not from here, actually, I'm from Long Island."_

_Rachel's face lit up. "I used to live in New York!"_

"_Snob."_

_They both laughed. "So what brings you to L.A.?" Rachel asked, getting some peanuts from her bowl._

_Audrey sighed, the kind of sigh Puck had given her earlier. "I'm looking for someone."_

"_Oh. Family?"_

"_Hum, not really." She studied Rachel's face for a few seconds. "Okay, do you believe in destiny?"_

"_I think it's the only thing that makes sense to explain a lot of things."_

_It's Audrey's time to beam. "Right? Okay, so maybe I won't feel so stupid for telling you this. I'm looking for this guy."_

_Rachel blinks. "I'm going to need more information."_

"_Yeah, sure. We grew up together in Long Island. We were neighbors. We went to the same school and he was my first kiss. Actually, my first and second kiss, the first one was kind of an accident, so I decided my second kiss was the one to count. We learned from each other, we went through two divorces from his and my parents together, we went to elementary school together. I'd protect him from bullies because he was so shy to step up and actually do something about it. He was my best friend. He was my first sex. He was my first everything."_

"_Wow."_

"_I know. But he had to move to this godamn city when his mom got a job here, so we separated at age 16. We cried our eyes out that last night and we exchanged rings. He stole his parents wedding rings and put one on my finger and one in his." She lifts up her right hand and shows Rachel the ring there. "He said one of us would come back for the other. Now I'm twenty-three and graduated from college and I'm here for him."_

_Rachel kept staring at Audrey. "That's a beautiful love story. Did you keep in touch all these years?"_

"_Not so much in these last two years. I had a lot going on at school and he was trying to make something out of himself here, which kept him pretty busy."_

"_So you'll surprise him?"_

"_I plan to. And here's where it gets interesting. I've been coming to this bar every day because here's where all the Sunset Strip people come to, right? Paul's a writer in ABC. He writes sketches for comedy there."_

"_So you've been essentially stalking ABC staff here?"_

"_Pretty much, yes. That meant I had to read a lot of things about show business too. Hence all my knowledge about you and your buddies."_

_Rachel smiles. "Audrey. This is exactly why I believe things are meant to be."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

_She grabs Audrey's wrists on the counter. "I work for ABC. The musical I'm staring is funded by this network. I can get you to meet Paul tomorrow if you want to."_

_Audrey's face is stoic. She speaks slowly. "Are you serious?"_

"_Yes, I am. I need you to program your number on my phone and I need you to free your schedule tomorrow around 6 p.m." She handed Audrey her phone. "Do you think you can do that?"_

"_Yeah, of course I can do that, are you kidding me? I've been waiting for this for the past seven years and you're telling me that I'll be meeting Paul tomorrow at six?"_

"_That's exactly what I'm telling you." Rachel smiled at her and took her phone back. "You know, sometimes there's someone who gets us to find who we need to find. Tomorrow, that someone will be me."_

"_Thank you." Audrey whispered. "Hot boss is coming back. I think I'll head back to the hotel. Big day tomorrow." She dropped a few bills on the counter and gets up, heading to the exit._

_Rachel felt Noah behind her and immediately turned around in the stool. "I have to go home."_

"_What? Why?" He was standing in front of her._

_She smiled at him. "I have to work at something. In my mind."_

_He stared down at her._

"_I know I sound crazy right now but I'm really not."_

"_No, I know what you mean. It's in your head and needs to get out of there, right?"_

_She grabbed his biceps. She was really excited about Audrey and Paul reuniting. "Yes, exactly!"_

_He laughed. "Okay. Let's get you home, then."_

* * *

><p>Kate hears a motion outside her office, looks up from the computer screen and tries to listen what it is.<p>

Suddenly her door is wide open and Puck walks in, followed by Rachel, John, Phillip and Jessa. There are some people from the band, a small guy she thinks is called Alex and another one she has no clue about. Her assistant walks in too, seeming nervous.

"I tried to stop all of them." He mumbles.

"It's okay, Leonard." She tells him. He leaves, then, giving everyone standing in her office a look. "You really need to knock."

Puck takes a step towards her desk, with a face she's seen on him a few times, last one in Rachel's room when he yelled at the officer responsible for Lisa's case.

"You fired him?" he asks, his voice trembling a bit.

She nods. "I did."

"Because he wouldn't budge?"

She raises her eyebrow. "That's exactly why, actually."

He looks at everyone else in the room and raises both hands.

"Are you _kidding_ me? You only picked us for the grant because of the musical part Julian wrote. Then you tried to get him to sell it to another writer because I did not have the script ready. He didn't budge. He believed in me and for that, in everyone else in this room. Every single person standing here is here because of him. We're sold out for the first month being 28 days away from our premiere because of him! So guess what, boss? Him not budging is what got us here!"

Kate keeps looking at him. "I don't see how that justifies an insubordination."

Puck stares at her with an expression she can't quite put her finger on. "Are you really gonna go on with this?"

"His rescission just got in my desk." She raises the paper and shows them.

Puck takes his eyes off the paper and looks at her. "Well, then you better make me one of those, too."

Kate sees everyone else look at each other as Puck stares at her. She sighs, though. "I knew you would do that. It's stupid in one million ways but I knew the moment you heard about Julian's demission you were going to burst into my office and say that."

"Are you surprised I did?" he asks her, getting even closer to her desk.

"No, I just said I expected it all along. And it's stupid and honestly, not effective."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're a writer, Puckerman. You wrote the script and that was your highlight in this musical. You want to quit? Go ahead. We're a month away from premiere and stage directing can be done by anyone who's had two theater classes in high school."

He stares at her for a few seconds and doesn't say anything. She has the impression she crossed some kind of line here, because the dead silence lasts way longer than she's used to.

"I quit, too."

Everyone looks at Rachel, who's standing near the window and looking at Kate fiercely.

"Can you get a new lead too?" she goes on.

Everyone else looks back at Kate.

"Two leads." John says.

"And the lead's understudies." Phillip says, looking at Jessa, who nods at him and turns back to Kate.

"You are not all serious, are you?" Kate asks them.

Rachel tilts her chin. "Either we do this with Julian or we don't do this at all."

Kate shakes her head. "Now that's effective. You know I could just fire you all, right?"

"You could." Puck says. "But then you'd have a crappy musical without your leads and not enough people watching it to make profitable."

He can see the wheels working on her head, even if his heart is pouding on his chest.

She finally nods, accepting his conclusion. "Okay." She takes Julian's rescission and gets up, throwing in at the paper shredder. "Julian Cortez is rehired for the position of musical producer. Effective immediately. Now go back to work."

Everyone looks at each other quickly before exiting Kate's office. When everyone's outside, they all take deep breaths.

"That was hands down the coolest thing I've ever been a part of." Jessa says as they walk on ABC's hall.

"You're in the musical, doesn't that count?" Rachel asks her.

"Oh. Yeah. That too."

Puck steps ahead of everyone, reaching for his phone. "I'll see if I can catch Julian to tell him the good news." He says, disappearing in a corner.

They all get back to the theater and both Phillip and Jessa head to their dressing rooms.

John watches Rachel as she sits in the front row, seeming exhausted.

"It took guts to do what you did there, you know." He tells her. "Kate's a basket case, she could've just fired us all. It was probably a coin flip."

"I don't think anything is a coin flip with her." She mumbles darkly.

He sits next to her, sighing. "You're probably right."

She takes a deep breath. "It wasn't just my gut telling me to do that. It was me actually realizing that I don't want to do this without Julian. Or anyone else, for that matter."

He tilts his head at her, seeming intrigued by that.

"Remember glee club? How we were this big family and cared about each other and really enjoyed each other's company? We weren't there to just compete, we were there because we wanted to be around each other." She glances at John, who's smiling at the memory. "And then we graduated and I went to college and everyone was just so bitchy and competitive and New York just factored that by a million. I'm starting to feel like I used to in glee club again. God, I missed that."

John smiles at her. "I missed that, too."

There are a few seconds of silence from both of them.

"What time is it?" Rachel asks him.

"Almost six." He gets up. "I'm exhausted, I'm going to go home."

She takes his arm. "No, you won't. You'll stay and see destiny make its magic."

"What?"

"Just wait."

And true to her word, they hear a few steps and turn around. Audrey walks through the theater's aisle with a smile on her face.

"Hey." She greets John and Rachel.

"John, this is Audrey." They shake hands, while John keeps a confused face.

"He's coming in a few minutes." Rachel says. "Come with us."

The three of them head backstage. The girls keep staring at the stage.

"Okay, will someone tell me what the hell's going on?" John asks them.

"Shh!"

There're footsteps outside again.

"Hello?" a voice says.

Rachel turns to John. "Get him and bring him upstage." She whispers.

"Who is he? Why?"

"Trust me, just do it!"

He sighs, stepping on stage and heading towards the guy.

Rachel turns to Audrey. "This is it. The few seconds before you meet the love of your life again."

The other woman sighs bigly. They see John and Paul on stage, making small talk. Rachel wonders what they're talking about.

Audrey turns to Rachel. "Thank you."

She smiles at her. Then Audrey turns and heads to where Paul's standing on stage.

John leaves Paul there and heads backstage, at the opposite side from where Rachel's standing.

"Hi." Audrey says.

Paul turns to her.

"Audrey!" He beams at her, hugging her and lifting her from the floor of the stage. "Oh my god, you're actually here. How did you find me?"

She laughs, shaking her head. "You wouldn't believe if I told you."

He laughs too, looking at her with a stunned face still. "We have so much catching up to do. I have to show you something!" He grabs something from his pocket and opens it, showing it to her.

"This is Isabela, my wife. And this is my one year old girl, Pam."

Rachel's hearts drops. Audrey's back is to her, so she can't see the look on the girl's face. What she can see, though, is the wedding band in Paul's left hand. She looks at John, who's able to see Audrey's expression. He catches Rachel's eyes. They stare at each other in silence.

* * *

><p>She's standing on the roof top of the ABC building, smoking a cigarette and staring at the avenue and the city below. This is a place she comes sometimes, has been for the past few years. When things get hard and fuzzy she comes here and tries to empty her mind. When she feels that interacting with the world down there gets tiring and unbearable she likes to come here and pretend she's all alone. It usually helps. Today, specifically, not so much. Her mind is still going miles an hour.<p>

"You smoke." A voice to her side says.

Kate doesn't look at him. She's also mildly annoyed that he's interrupting her alone time.

"Wouldn't pick you for the smoking type." He goes on, getting closer to the place she's leaning on.

She sighs, still not saying anything. She should make him cut to the chase or he'll probably be saying things like that all day long.

"Can I bump one?" he asks, a little hesitant.

She narrows her eyes at him, handing him the pack and the lighter. He lights it up and gives it back to her. He isn't wearing a coat and puts his arms around himself.

"You didn't come here to share a cigarette with me, Julian."

Now it's his turn to sigh. He seems like he doesn't know how to start this. She's curious now.

"Peter told me about your condition."

Kate looks at the city below again. She doesn't feel angry exactly. She'd just prefer to keep this to herself. The Martinez already know and now him. She wonders how long it'll take until some tabloid runs the story.

But the worst part? The worst part is the look in people's faces when they hear. Like she's some kind of invalid person who deserves pity and tears. Like she's not a successful producer who brings pretty much any project she picks to a huge success. That's the main reason why she's avoiding Julian's eyes right now. She doesn't need a colleague feeling sorry for her.

"What can we do to make you feel more comfortable?"

She raises her eyes to him. That's an unusual question. He's still staring at her, seeming expectant, though. She clears her throat.

"It's better if you're as literal as possible." She mumbles, putting out her cigarette on her shoe sole. "It's not like I can't pick up on sarcasm or anything, but I tend to follow a logical thought line. Also, I'm diagnosed as a sociopath. Sometimes I get tired from interacting with people all day and I just want to be alone. Sometimes I think like every single serial killer you've heard of. I'm not going to kill anyone, but I just have a better grasp in tracing a logical way between means and ends than most people."

She watches him swallow.

"Sometimes I get carried away if I see that something, anything, is getting in the way of my path traced. Yesterday that was you." She gives him a half smile. "If someone tries a different, more subjective approach to something, I get confused and can't follow. It's good that you and I don't agree on everything. Sometimes I'll need someone to get in the way of my plan because my plan, being the shorter and rational path, will tend to leave a lot of other things out. People's feelings, mostly. So it was a good thing that you went over me yesterday."

Julian nods, smiling a bit now, too.

"Just don't make it a habit. Most of the time I'll be right and you'll be wrong." She completes, grabbing the pack of cigarettes and the lighter and heading to the roof door.

He laughs quietly.

* * *

><p>"Come on, cheer up!" John says to Rachel as they sit on stage, her leaning on the prop house that's her character's on the play and John with his arms resting on his knees.<p>

"Stop saying that." She retorts. "It's not helping."

"Oh, come on, you'll let that ruin your week?

She fumbles with the bottom of her sweater. "Look, I know you don't care that Audrey had her heart broken here today but I do."

"It's not that I don't care. It's just that—"

She looks up at him. "What?"

He looks down. "Nothing."

She glares at him. "John."

He sighs and looks up at her. "This girl had her heart broken today but so did you. You're sometimes very self-centered but at the same time, you feel for other people. You feel for them when something doesn't go the way you hope it does. Case in point, you built this beautiful fairytale for her and this guy and you wanted them to be happily ever after. 'Cause that's what you do. You want your and other people's stories to fit in this fantasy world you build in your mind."

She doesn't say anything. John notices she looks defeated. He knows he should get this out, though.

"You built this story today that every single step from last night took you to this very moment where she and her middle school sweetheart reunite and get together. Because they're soul mates, made for each other and every other relationship they've ever been in was a preparation for meeting one another again. And you faced cold harsh reality when you found out he had already found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And you do this in your relationships as well. Your relationship with Finn was not healthy, Jessie's mush less. And they went badly for a number of factors but also because you wanted prince charming. Chances are you'll never find some guy who fits every narrative you've been feeding for years. Chances are this guy does not exist. Chances are the epic moments you think you'll share with the guy you fall for will be simple and ordinary." He leans forward. "And that's okay, Rach. That's love too. Simple, ordinary, everyday kind of love."

Rachel takes a deep breath and runs her hand through her hair. "That hurts."

"It does. But it's either this kind of pain now or unbearable pain later."

She scratches her nose and gets up, seeming tired. "Well, if the love of my life shows up here, tell him I'll be in my dressing room."

John smiles sadly, watching her go backstage.

She bumps into someone, though.

"Sorry," Noah says, steadying her with both hands on her shoulder.

She stares at him, feeling like crying. What she didn't tell anyone, not Audrey, not even John, is that she was waiting for a sign today. If Paul and Audrey were really meant to be, if they left the theater that day reunited and happily in love again, then maybe it was a sign from the universe that she should give in and give this crush on Noah a chance. _So much for that_, she thinks angrily.

"I've been meaning to ask you all day, did it work out, the thing you ran home to do last night?" he asks her.

She drops her head, felling miserable. "No, it didn't. It worked out tragically."

"It happens." He tells her, tilting his head down to look at her. "Doesn't mean the idea is tragic. Just means the execution was. From my own experience, try again."

She gives him a forced smile. If she hadn't had her heart stepped on today his words would mean more. Right now, they're like her words to Matt earlier: just words.

"Anyway. That's for you."

She looks down at the envelope he's handing her and takes it. Then she stares back at him curiously.

"It's kind of a thank you for sticking with me and Julian today." He says. "I probably wouldn't have gotten everyone on my side if it wasn't for you."

She opens it and her fingers close over a piece of paper. She takes it off from the envelope and stares at a gold star made of paper with her name on it.

"That goes at the door of your dressing room. I had some prop intern do that for me cause let's face it, I sucked at kindergarten."

She keeps staring at the gold star in her hand, speechless.

"It's a fairly appropriate metaphor, isn't it? Your name on a gold star?" he goes on, smiling down at her.

Rachel feels her heart beat incredibly fast. She looks up at him, not trusting herself to say anything. Her mind is kind of not working right now.

That's probably why she leans up on her toes and kisses him, gold star and envelope resting on the top of his chest while her fingers soothes his cheek softly.

He tastes like coffee and mint and the fabric of his shirt is very, very soft. She's suddenly very aware of her heartbeats. When his hands come to rest on her waist she takes a step back, though.

His eyes are closed when she opens her own to look at him. When he opens his again, she stares at them for a few seconds before turning around and walking away, leaving an astonished Noah behind.


	8. Chapter 7 - Part I

**Chapter 7 – Part I**

"Are we gonna talk about what just happened?" Puck asks Rachel.

They're both in her dressing room, him having gone there a few seconds after she'd left him backstage. He had stared at the space she'd previously occupied for a while with confusion splashed over his face before deciding to chase after her in the theater.

She's currently gathering a few things and putting them in her bag to go home. She takes a few seconds on that as he stares at her. He notices the gold star he gave her is lying on her dresser.

He wonders what got into her to act like that. Was it the stupid paper star he gave her? Did he trigger some kind of unsolved crap she had? His heart is still beating pretty fucking fast.

She sighs heavily and looks up at him.

"Close the door." She tells him.

He does, taking a few steps into the room and staring at her expectantly.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you." She says, staring right at him.

He swallows. He can't say that's not a shitty thing to hear.

"Then why did you?"

Rachel presses her line in a thin line. "Honestly? Because this little piece of paper you gave me made me believe in a lot of good things again. So that shut my mind off for a second. Remember you asked me if I ever don't think? Sometimes I don't but it's rare because that's what happens when I don't."

"You should never turn your mind back on, then." He smiles.

She doesn't, though. But she does get closer to him and takes his hand on her.

"Can you not turn this into a big thing?" she asks him.

"And pretend I don't want to kiss you again?" he says in a small voice.

Rachel blushes a little. "Noah, come on."

"You wanted to kiss me and you did. Why not do it every time you feel like it?"

She lets go of his hand. "Isn't it obvious? You're my boss. There's hierarchy involved."

He frowns. "We do liberal arts; do you really believe hierarchy is that important?"

"Oh, you don't think so? I know a musician who got fired yesterday by his boss."

"That's cause Kate does business, not art." He says. "Have I ever treated you or anyone else, for that matter, like you were below me?"

"No, you didn't." She says, holding her hair in her hands and pulling it into a messy bun. "But personal relationships can get in the way of professional matters."

"And we won't let that happen. Objectively, what do you think can happen here? I get heartsick and don't cast you?"

She rolls her eyes at his sarcasm. "You might favor me in stage directing. I might get distracted by your closeness in rehearsal. It might change our other relationships in the theater."

He won't lie and say that he's not happy she just admitted she's attracted to him. "Huh, we're a month away from our premiere. I think we're pretty much settled in that matter. And you really think I'd spend more time with you in rehearsal just because we'd be seeing each other? How unprofessional do you think I am?"

She sighs, clearly frustrated. "Look, I know it doesn't seem like a problem right now, but trust me, it is. Besides –" she adds quickly, seeing he's still not getting it, "if morally you don't feel obligated to not pursue a romantic relationship with me, I'll have you know that legally, you have to."

That makes him shut up.

"What? What do you mean?"

"We are contractually obligated to not be involved romantically."

Puck stares at her, confused. "Are you serious?"

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Very. There's a non-fraternization clause in it."

"In our contract?"

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"I believe so."

He raises both hands. "Oh my god. Whose idea's was it?"

"Someone who knew that people working together should not be going out with each other."

Puck scoffs. "Okay, having some stupid clause somewhere in my contract saying I can't go out with anyone in this theater doesn't make it less stupid and arbitrary."

"It's not stupid or arbitrary." She says, shaking her head in exasperation.

He looks at her for a few seconds, doesn't say anything. She shouldn't want to kiss him again, but now she knows how his lips taste and how his chest feels under her fingers.

"There are plenty of women in L.A. outside this theater who'd love to go out with you." Rachel says, trying to get her mind out of making out with him.

He swallows, seeming defeated. "Okay."

She nods with a mix of relief and disappointment. "Okay."

Puck turns and leaves her dressing room. She locks the door after him and leans back against it, closes her eyes. She has the feeling he's not as conformed as he seemed.

* * *

><p>"Well, well, well! If it isn't Sunset Strip's big-shot writer, Noah Puckerman!" Santana greets him, sounding pissed and amused all the same. "I'm surprised you remember my name."<p>

"Oh, to hell with the guilt trip. I've been busy." He is inside his car, parked outside his trailer. He's just gotten home for the day.

"Have you? Because Julian, who's been calling me every week, tells me he's busting his ass off while you sit and stare at your laptop."

Puck frowns, leaving the car. "He didn't say that."

"No, but that's what I got from it. Is it that too far from the truth?"

He doesn't want to get into how he's working on a screenplay since Rachel told him he's a screenplay writer last night.

"Look, you're my lawyer, right? And I sent you my ABC contract so you could give me the green light before I signed it."

"Yeah."

"Do you remember a clause about non-fraternization with co-workers or some crap like that?"

There's a second of silence on the other side. "Yes, I do."

"And you let me sign it? Why didn't you say anything about it?"

"Because I didn't think you'd want to bang a co-worker, Puck!"

He stops in his tracks as he's getting up on the little stairs that leads up to the entrance of the trailer. "Okay, that's not fair, you haven't even met her. She's fifteen kinds of awesome before she even opens her mouth to sing and act. And when she does you keep trying to see where and how hard she hit you with her monstrous talent."

Another few seconds of silence on the other side.

"And I don't wanna bang her." He mumbles. "I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to it, not at all, because she's so hot it makes you pant after her a little. Anyway." Silence. "San."

She sighs. "Legally speaking, in 99% of the cases these clauses are only there for the sake of being there. Most time whether or not you're allowed to go out with someone you work with depends on your boss and whether you have a good relationship with them."

Puck laughs, actually laughs out loud in the middle of the woods.

"I take it you've already pissed your boss off." Santana says.

He shakes his head. "You don't know Kate Mitchell. She's got a good relationship with no one exactly."

"Well, from what I see, you won't be able to bang Ms. Broadway for as long as she works for you, then."

He frowns. "Ms. Broadway? How do you know that?"

"I read TV Guide every week when I'm having my nails done. She's very hot. Petite. Great lips. Small boobs, but those are underrated, don't you think?"

Puck laughs. "How're Quinn and Grace?"

"They're good. Quinn's going to Brazil to cover presidential elections there next month."

"Wow, that's awesome."

"Yeah. We're having a go away party for her in two weeks. I'm not gonna lie and say I like being away from my wife as often as I do. But hey, she ends up winning a Pulitzer and my name goes on her speech, you know?"

"She's totally winning one someday." He says, and believes in it. They four of them went to college together, him, Julian, Santana and Quinn, and he still keeps some of Quinn's articles for the university newspaper. Those things will totally be worth something in the future.

"What about little Grace?" he goes on, smiling as he remembers her birthday card to him that said _To uncle Puck, whose stories are still too adult for me_.

He can hear Santana smiling on the other side, too. "She's great, just lost her first tooth yesterday. Didn't even cry, the buster. I sent Julian a picture."

"I'll have him show me." He sees Julian's car light on his face. "I have to go, San."

"Don't fucking vanish anymore, okay?"

"Kay." He hangs up and watches as his friend parks his car in front of his own trailer.

There's a reason he didn't say anything to Julian about this thing with Rachel. And it's got to do with the fact that his best friend and her don't really get along very well. More often than not they kind of bicker all the way through rehearsal, making everyone a little uncomfortable. He enjoys watching, honestly, as Rach gets under Julian's skin and vice versa. But to maintain a relationship with her means there'll be a lot of hanging out together for the three of them, and he's sure Julian wouldn't be thrilled by that. Neither would Rachel.

Besides, there's really nothing to tell. They've kissed and she kind of brushed him off.

"Eight missed calls. Who's dying?" Julian says as he approaches the stairs where Puck's sitting.

"You got your job back."

Julian raises his eyebrows.

"The leads and I went to Kate's office saying we'd quit, too, if she didn't admit you back." Puck completes as his friend sits next to him.

"Really?"

Puck smiles. "You surprised?"

"I'm surprised that worked, actually. I figured she'd just fire you all."

"That certainly crossed her mind. Kate Mitchell is all kinds of things, but stupid ain't one of'em."

"Matt's in, too. I got Peter to accept him as a cast member."

Puck whistles. "She must've breathed fire. Two of her decisions revoked on one day?"

"Yeah, about that." Julian sighs bigly. "There's something about her you need to know."

* * *

><p>"<em>Close your eyes."<em>

_Lisa did as told. She could feel her heart pounding inside her chest. _

"_I know you don't want to think about it anymore. I know I've made you talk about this incident extensively in the past four days. But I need to know if you're still triggered by something that makes you remember it."_

_She swallows. The past four days were probably the hardest ones of her life. Between watching dumb cartoons in her room at Rachel's and staring at the ceiling hoping to get some sleep, she had been seeing Doctor Pierce every day now. It had been a fine excuse to leave the house for a few hours, she thought. Interacting with people outside the house was something that made her palms sweat, though. A man had approached her to tell her she'd dropped her keys and she kind of freaked out. She could hear steps outside her room when it was really quiet at night. She'd stare at the new lock in her room for hours, then. _

_Sleep had been low in her priorities. She'd been taking sleeping pills to get a few hours of rest every night. Rachel and John would knock on her door and she'd open it trying to look like she slept more than she actually did. They'd have breakfast with her and leave her on the couch in the living room with a kiss on the forehead. In the afternoons she'd drive to Doctor Pierce's office and then back to another round of a tedious pointless night. _

_She had been talking about what happened in a cold and detached way, according to Pierce. The first day of therapy she narrated everything to the woman fluidly. The exercise that followed that consisted in repeating out loud that she had been a victim of rape. When she truly understood and felt what that meant she'd been reduced to a babbling mess on the chair in Pierce's office. _

_Kate and Peter had promised her she'd be able to go back to work as soon as the psychiatrist gave her the green light. Not one minute sooner than that, though. _

_She was going to take this final exercise seriously, then. The only thing that could possibly shut her mind off for a few hours was dancing with the cast. Tech would start next week and she knew her presence in the theater was essential. _

"_I want you to take yourself back to that yard."_

_She felt the blood in her ears. The one thing she had been terrified of doing since that night was go or look to the place in the front of the house it had happened. Her room faced the back yard. She'd get in her car and actively not look to the spot it had happened. _

"_Take deep breaths. Deep breaths."_

_She did as told. Still, she didn't want to take herself back there. She thought of her first ballet room, when she was eight. She thought about the look in her grandmother's face when she got the solo in the dance recital when she was twelve. She thought about the dance number she'd created in John's solo where he, Rachel, Matt and some extras go to a barricade in the musical. _

"_He's forcing you to kiss him, pressing on you."_

_The first time she saw Swan Lake was the time she knew she wanted to use her body to express herself in life. She was seven and a half. Her dad had taken her there. She took the tape to her ballet class and had her teacher made it into the Christmas presentation. _

"_You're on the ground and your friends are right there, talking to each other."_

_She's in Jack's Smirking Revenge, the bar she and the cast and crew hang out sometimes after an impossible day of rehearsal in the theater. Rachel and Phillip are singing some pop song that sticks in your head and you go home humming it. Some people are filming them. They were called in Kate's office after a particular presentation by very drunk Jessa and Matt leaked and had gotten over a hundred thousand views on youtube. Rachel and John's sober number of _Don't You Want Me _had gotten over five hundred thousand views_.

"_He's doing it. He's inside you. His breath is on your neck."_

_She's watching a dumb 80's movie with Matt in the living room, making fun of everybody's hair and clothes. It's a very stereotyped movie with exactly no characters you can actually relate to. It's so terrible they mute it in the final hour and dub the scenes. _

"_Open your eyes." _

_She did. _

_Dr. Pierce stared at her for a few seconds. _

"_I think you're good to get back to work. I think your PTSD is under control and you've made notable progress. Do you think you're ready to get back to work, Lisa?"_

_Lisa nodded. The psychiatrist got a document on her desk and signed it, handed it to her. _

"_Don't go thinking you're rid of me. We'll still see each other every week. I can null this document if you miss our appointments here or if any episodes take me to believe you're still not ready, okay?"_

_She nodded again and stared at Pierce's signature at the bottom of the paper._

She's staring at it now as she sits in Kate's office, where she was told to wait. Apparently Kate had some errand to run at UCLA. She hears the door open behind her.

"Lisa, hi. I'm sorry, I had to have the undergrads that'll spend the week here with you picked at UCLA." Kate goes to her chair and sits on it, seeming rushed. "Julian and Puck have known about this for a while, but I believe the cast and crew have not. I'll have a meeting with everyone at the theater after we're done here and you'll be properly informed."

Kate takes a deep breath, suddenly leaving the practical air behind.

"How are you doing?"

She hands her the paper on her hands. "Certificatedly better."

"Wow, already?" Kate raises her eyes to Lisa. "You're good. Dr. Pierce is the best in the job."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Kate looks like her point should be very obvious. "It's been less than a month. You don't get over what you went through in less than a month."

She's suddenly very pissed at Kate's assumption. "Are you saying I faked it? That I pretended to be better just to come back to work?"

"I don't think you faked it." Kate signs the paper as well and puts it aside on her desk. "I think you honestly believe you're past it. Or can be. Anyway, I'm not the shrink. Dr. Pierce is."

She gets up and gestures to the door of the office, following Lisa out of the room. "Welcome back."

They walk in silence as they cross the way to get to the theater on the other side of the street. Kate greets the doorman, who smiles at Lisa. She lowers her eyes and walks by him, entering the theater with Kate.

Matt's the first one to notice them, gets up from where he is at one of the audience seats and looks at her, smiling.

"Is everybody here yet?" Kate asks, looking over to where Julian and Puck are supposed to be sitting.

John, Rachel, Jessa and Phillip emerge from backstage and they all smile at Lisa. "They were just here, Puck went upstairs to get something in his office." John informs.

"And Julian?"

"No idea." Jessa says, shrugging.

The choir and the rest of the cast are already gathered at the audience. The musicians are on stage with their instruments. Kate gestures for them to come over and well and walks over to the stairs of the stage, where she can get a view from both of their offices above the audience. "Hey, Puckerman! Meeting down here."

Puck emerges at the balcony, nods and starts to descend at the stairs that lead to the back of the audience.

Julian enters the theater holding his phone on his ear, but turns it off as he sees everyone gathered at the audience.

"Good, everyone's here." Kate says. "We've got tech starting today. I know you think you've already rehearsed a lot and worked a lot but that was nothing compared to what'll going on for the next two weeks."

"She's right." Puck says, putting his hand on Julian's shoulder as he stands next to him. "You all think you've seen this guy be the most anal he can be? Think again."

Julian rolls his eyes as they all laugh.

"You work schedules have been posted on your dressing rooms and the board on the entrance of the theater." Kate goes on. "It's been improved. You'll be here for more hours and we're going to get through the night because we're working on a relatively tight schedule here. Say goodbye to your friends and family for the next couple of weeks. Your body and soul belong to this theater. You know the drill. No civilians at tech."

Everybody seem to get a more serious, professional air at those words.

Kate looks over at Lisa with a hint of smile. "You'll also be happy to know that our choreographer is back."

Lisa gets applause from the group and smiles a little bit. She thinks it'll be good to be back. She feels better already.

Kate goes on. "And last but not least, in about half an hour, there will be five undergrads from UCLA here. They're all getting a liberal arts diploma next year and the network thought it'd be a good idea to get them to interact with people from show business. Peter and I will bring them here and they'll be introduced. Act normal, do everything you've been doing for the past months. Show them the magic that you all work here."

Julian looks down, trying not to smile. He's gotten used to her provocations about how they romantize everything they do in the theater. Well, him, Rachel and John, mostly.

Kate leaves them with a nod and everyone turns their attention to Julian.

"You heard her. Let's go, everyone." He gets the schedule and looks up at the cast and crew again. "Your outfits have been left in your dressing rooms, the marks are already on stage, we'll work mainly on the lights and sound today. With some luck we'll do the whole musical until the end of this day, only interrupting it to correct something that comes up. So go put on your outfits and we'll meet here in half an hour to meet these kids."

Lisa takes a breath as the actors go backstage and the crew to their spots.

"Hey." Matt says, getting her attention. They look at each other for a few seconds. "You can do this."

He seems so sure of it, so sincere, that she has to smile. "Thank you."

Only the smiles kind of fades when he leaves her standing in the middle of the audience and she notices everyone has gone somewhere else, too.

* * *

><p>Puck is sitting on the table in the middle of the audience with Julian. Rehearsal has not started but everyone is already on their outfits. Rachel's on stage as she's the first person to appear on the musical. She's wearing her dress from the first act.<p>

Someone from lighting shows up at their table and says something to Julian that Puck isn't terribly interested.

"Berry, could you go center stage, please?" Julian says.

She does and a big round light is on her now. They all look at their lightning designer, standing in the structure above the stage, who gives them a thumbs up. The lighting assistant says something to Julian and leaves.

There is a motion to their right and Puck looks away from the stage to the group of people standing in the audience with Kate and Peter.

"Could you bring the cast down here, please?" Julian asks Helen, who nods and uses the microphone thing in her ear to announce it on the sound system of the theater.

It takes a few minutes before the cast is gathered on stage. It's oddly funny to see them all in their clothes for the musical.

The undergrads seem a bit nervous looking at them on stage. Puck smiles at that.

"Don't be shy, come closer!" Peter says, waving at them. They all walk to the space between the first rows and the stage, where Kate, Lisa, Julian and himself are standing. "I'm very happy about this agreement with UCLA. Kate?"

She takes a step ahead. "You have a hall pass to be here and get to understand how much it takes to get a production like that done. They've been rehearsing for almost three months now and tech starts today. They'll be stressed out and there might be some yelling and running around but that's normal in this world."

The undergrads laugh a bit nervously.

"We have three former UCLA students here." Peter tells them. "Elisabeth Cooper, our choreographer, MFA in dance, Julian Cortez, BA with emphasis on composition and Noah Puckerman, BA in film and television."

Puck's a little impressed Peter know their degrees.

"Our leads, on the other hand, are from Julliard." Rachel and John smile at them.

Kate takes a note from her pocket and looks through it. "Alright. Claire Austin, theater program."

A black girl with really dark hair steps ahead and beams at John and Rachel on stage. She's wearing not so casual clothes and seems really energetic.

"Marley Rose, music program with emphasis on composition as well."

Marley smiles at Julian but doesn't take a step ahead like Claire did. She's tall and has light brown hair.

"Anita Martinez, who some of us already know, music program, too."

The girl waves at them all, seeming very relaxed. The others look at her and Puck feels they see her like some sort of threat. He wonders if it would be better if Kate didn't say anything about her already knowing them from the day of Lisa's incident.

"Daniel Gallagher, theater program, also wants to be a performer."

The boy flashes them an impeccable smile as he also takes a step ahead. He's got brown hair, green eyes and looks like he spends some time working out.

"Lucas Greenberg, studies photography at the department of art."

"It's actually Grünberg, it's german." The blonde boy says in a small voice. "It's okay, though, I'm used to people not getting it right."

"It's written Greenberg here, I'm sorry." Kate says, putting the paper back on her pocket. "Well, I trust you're all properly introduced. Peter and I are right across the street if any of you need us, okay?"

They all shake hands and the undergrads go sit in the first row of the audience as the cast go to their places for act one. Julian leaves Puck on the table as he goes backstage to get ready to play. He agreed he'd do that as long as it felt comfortable, with someone to replace him if he couldn't or didn't feel like being in the band that day.

Rehearsal go surprisingly smooth, with Julian only stopping the first number a few times and Lisa not stopping them at all. The scenes go well, too, and Puck has to admit that everything looks amazing when they run the play like this, for real.

Julian announces the lunch break at almost 3 P.M., but everyone seems accomplished. Puck sees the enthusiastic girl and the jock following Rachel and John backstage as the tall girl goes to where is resting his guitar on stage and starts talking to him. He opens up his notebook and stares at the screenplay he had been working on.

"So what you think of them?" Jessa asks as Rachel, Matt, John and Phillip sit on Rach's dressing room and eat the food their PA brought them.

"I think they're very enthusiastic." John says. "Claire and Dan cornered Rach and me when we were leaving stage to congratulate us profusely and say how much they admire us."

"She mentioned she saw me in this incredible small production of Women in the Verge of a Breakdown in New York two years ago." Rachel mentions, holding this plastic thing with salad on his hand. "Then she went on and listed her theater idols, musicals that changed her life and her favorite pop singers."

"Wonder who that reminds me of." John says with a funny face as he takes a bite of his sandwich.

"I… wasn't like that." Her confidence fades away a little as John raises his eyebrows at her. "Well, she knows what she wants, she's working towards it. Good for her."

"What about the boy?" Phillip asks. "Did he get to say anything?"

John laughs. "Hardly. But he didn't seem bothered by that. He actually seemed amused."

"Does Lisa seem okay to you?"

Everyone looks at Matt, who hasn't said nothing since they sat down for lunch.

"I don't know. She's recovering." Jessa mumbles. "She looks okay for someone who doesn't live with her."

"Did you see something? Did she show some sign that things are not okay?" Rachel asks, worried.

"No, there was nothing, but…" He sighs. "I worry, that's all. She got back remarkably fast."

John puts a hand on Matt's shoulder.

"I think I'd want to throw myself at work as soon as possible if something like that happened to me." Rachel mumbles, looking down at her food.

"Really?" Phillip questions her, tilting his head.

She shrugs. "If my world were completely thrown off like that I think I would want to keep doing the one thing that gives my life some meaning."

They all remain silent for a few minutes after that, picking at their food, until Helen calls everyone back on stage for the rest of afternoon and evening of rehearsal.

They manage to go over the whole thing one time and the second one are with Jessa and Phillip. Puck climbs on stage to say something to Phillip and Jessa as Matt's understudy goes in, too. Rachel, John and Matt end up sitting in the audience to watch everything with the undergrads.

"Can I get a picture with you guys?" Claire asks them, holding up her phone.

"Sure." Rachel says, and Matt, John and herself gather around the girl and smile at her phone.

"Oh my god, this is so going on MySpace right now." She types something desperately on her phone and turns to Rachel. "Do think I'll ever be like you someday?"

Rachel laughs a little. "I don't know, I've never seen you sing."

"She's great." Dan says. "I've seen her on the spring festival we organize at school."

Claire beams at him. "Thank you. You're not so bad yourself."

"Get a room, will you?" Anita says with in a clipped tone. Rachel notices Marley smiling at little at that as Dan and Claire rolls their eyes.

Around 9 P.M. they perform the closing number and Julian claps and wraps it up. Rachel feels really tired for the time being and stretches on her seat at the audience as the cast and the understudies go backstage.

"We'll hit the bar after this, do you want to come with us?" Dan says, turning to John, Rachel and Matt.

"Oh, please come." Claire says, jumping a little bit. "This way you'll all get to see me singing."

"Yeah, I would close every bar in New York when I was your age and in college." John says with a nostalgic-like expression. "But I have a tub in the bathroom, a lasagna on the fridge and a very nice episode of Grey's Anatomy waiting for me at home, so."

"Jesus, grandpa." Anita says, walking to the aisle. Claire and Dan follow her close behind. "All right, we'll be there every day until the end of the week if you change your minds."

Matt turns to Marley and Lucas, who are still gathering their things. "You're not going with them?"

Marley blushes a little. "Hum, no. I'm not really in the mood."

"Same here." Lucas mumbles, getting up and walking to the side entrance of the theater.

"See you guys in the car, Rach." Matt says and rushes backstage.

John turns to Rachel. "I'll get my stuff and we'll head home, then? Phillip and Jessa shouldn't take long to change."

Rachel turns her eyes back to him. He follows the direction she had been looking at sees Puck showing Julian something on his laptop.

"This again?" John sighs.

She wonders if she should just tell him about the kiss earlier. She always tells him everything. She starts to open her mouth to just say the words, but they die in her throat as he stares at her worriedly. "It's actually work related, what I'm about to talk to him about." Half-lie. "You don't need to worry about it. I'm in piece with my decision of not going through with this, it's okay." Lie.

John's phone buzzes and he takes it from his pocket and looks down at it. "Okay, then." He says, distractedly, rushing backstage. "I'll meet you in fifteen at the parking lot."

She nods and looks over to the table in the audience again. Julian is nowhere to be seen and Noah seems concentrated on whatever he's typing in his laptop. She climbs the steps at the aisle and gets in front of the table. He looks up at her with a little smile.

"Nice work today."

She doesn't know what she expected from him, but this was not it. "Thank you."

"I'm thinking about adding a new piece of monolog for Matt's character in the barricade scene." He tells her, closing his notebook. "Worked at it for hours today. I feel his arch will only be complete if I add that."

That was definitely not the way this conversation went in her mind. She doesn't get too carried away in that train of thought, though, because the possibility of a change in Johann arch is something exciting to be explored.

"Can I see it?" she says. It's unfairly simple and fluid to talk to him, especially when it's theater related.

"I'll e-mail it to you and you check it out at your place."

"Deal." She puts both hands on his table. "Are we… okay?" She asks tentatively, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear.

He looks at her with a confused expression. "Why wouldn't we be?"

She shrugs, pressing her lips in a thin line. She doesn't get to point out the obvious, though, because his confusion expression is replaced by one of exasperation as he asks, "Because you rejected me?"

She has to give him points for cutting straight to the chase. She waits for him to go on, seeing he clued in that she came there to clear the air between them.

"I'm mildly offended by your view on my professionalism." He says. "I've been rejected before. It happens. It doesn't have to be awkward or change the way I work with you. I meant it when I said that if we went out nothing would change in the theater and that also applies to us not going out."

She's not able to hold back the smile she gives him as he stands up and puts his laptop in his bag. "I'm glad." She says, and he puts on his cross budy bag as they stand in either side of the table and they stare at each other. She's a little thrown away by his bluntness and sincerity. She's used to being the one who's blunt and honest about her emotions, even if that sometimes hurt people around her. She's gotten maturer and emotionally brighter since high school, but even now she has always had no problems in saying exactly what she wanted out of a relationship. Hearing it from the other side, even if they aren't in a relationship, makes her feel a wave of affection towards him that has nothing to do with sexual attraction.

The problem, she thinks, lives in the fact that for the rest of the time everything else she feels towards him do.


End file.
